Casanova: The Seduction of Europe
Legion of Honor | February 10 – May 28, 2018

“Those who have not lived in the eighteenth century, in the years before the revolution, do not know the sweetness of living and cannot imagine what it was like to have happiness in life.”
— Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF)inviteaudiences to journey into the world of eighteenth-centuryEurope  withone of its most colorful characters, Giacomo Casanova (Italian, 1725─1798), asguide. Casanova was considered by his own contemporaries to be a witty conversationalist, autobiographer, gambler, spy, and one of the greatest travelers of all time. More than 80 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, period furnishings, delicate porcelains, and lavish periodcostumes,re-create this luxurious and sparkling world of masked balls, palaces, theaters, and operas.

“The cosmopolitan Casanova is a fitting guide to lead our tour of the glittering art capitals of eighteenth-century Europe, from Venice to Constantinople, from Versailles to St. Petersburg,” says Max Hollein, DirectorandCEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “He knew the greatest figures of the age, from monarchs like Louis XV of France and Catherine the Great ofRussia,to popes, to intellectuals like Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin.”

Visitors are immersed in a visual world of Rococo finery, examining artworks not only as individual pieces but also as combined and cumulative expressions of wealth and prestige. Although often exhibited in isolation, these works are best understood as parts of luxurious environments that also included architecture and interior design. To achieve the effect of eighteenth-century opulence, the exhibition stages several tableaux enlivened by mannequins dressed in period costume and surrounded by paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts.

“This theatrical display of artworks is fitting for Casanova, who was not only the son of an actress but also an occasional theater musician and playwright,” explains Melissa Buron, Director, Art Division for the Fine Arts Museums. “These tableaux show how Casanova lived a life immersed in the many pleasures of art and they feature amorous, mythological, and pastoral scenes by some of the most important painters of the time, including François Boucher, Canaletto, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and William Hogarth.”