The Doge Attends the Giovedi Grasso Festival in the Piazzetta

Art Historical Context

In the bustling heart of 18th-century Venice,The Doge Attends the Giovediasso Festival in the Piaetta* captures a vibrant moment of Carnival revelry. Created by engraver Giovanni Battista Brustolon paintings by the renowned Venetian vedutista Canaletto, this 1763–1766 etching and engraving the Doge—Venice's elected leader—processioning through the Piazzetta San Marco on Giovedi Grasso, or "Fat Thursday," the lively kickoff to pre-Lenten festivities. Crowds in masquerade fill the square, framed by iconic architecture like the Doge's Palace and St. Mark's Campanile, evoking the city's opulent social life before its decline as a republic. Brustolon's masterful print technique—combining etching's fluid lines for atmospheric depth with engraving's precise details—reproduces Canaletto's topographic precision, making Venice's grandeur accessible beyond oil paintings. Printed on laid paper (44.8 x 57.2 cm plate), it exemplifies the era's print boom, allowing collectors across Europe to own a slice of La Serenissima's magic. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, this work highlights Venice's cultural prestige and the Doge's ceremonial pomp amid fading maritime power. A window into festive traditions, it invites us to imagine the music, masks, and merriment echoing through history.