Scene of Contemporary Life: A Session of the Magistrates

Domenico Tiepolo's celebrated Scenes of Contemporary Life furnish an extraordinary view of late eighteenth-century Venice: its trades and professions, its street life, its fashions and amusements. Here, the legal problem to which the five aristocratic magistrates are applying themselves is not immediately apparent; their attention seems to be directed on the lowly monk standing before them. The motley crowd at the left appears to await their turn in court in the company of their bewigged legal representatives, one of whom takes a pinch of snuff to pass the time. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"