The lightly indicated squaring in the background recalls the squared panels of damask in the Ridotto, a fashionable gambling resort opened by Marco Dandolo in his palace in San Moisé in 1638; see for example the painting by Francesco Guardi sold at Christie's, London, 9 July 1993, lot 95, illustrated. It was closed in 1774 by the Signoria on account of the fortunes which were squandered in gambling there. The present drawing is from a series depicting scenes from contemporary life, which James Byam Shaw regarded as 'perhaps the most amusing and delightful of all his work', op. cit, p. 47. This series can be divided into three groups, not always clear or distinct- scenes with peasants or gypsies on the mainland, everyday events in Venice itself and lastly drawings of the High Life- the present sheet is from the latter one. In the scenes of High Life, Domenico often adapted caricatures drawn by his father; in the present drawing the worldly priest is based on his father's study in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, (E. Brugerolles, Les Dessins Vénitiens des collections de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1990, no. 57, illustrated) and the man seen from behind is similar to studies of figures seen from behind in the Kay album, such as that in the Robert Lehman Collection, J. Byam Shaw and G. Knox, Italian Eighteenth-Century Drawings in the Robert Lehman Collection, New York, 1987, no. 97, illustrated