# Decoration of the grand staircase [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MORLAITER, Michelangelo]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Fresco ## Commentary The <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/m/massari/grassi1.html'\)" href="/html/m/massari/grassi1.html">Palazzo Grassi,</a> overlooking the Grand Canal opposite the Ca' Rezzonico in Venice. was built for the Grassi family by Giorgio Massari between 1749 and 1766. The architect adopted an innovative solution on the ground floor, with its two-story high main hall, large colonnaded courtyard, and "imperial style' main staircase, which proceed with grand theatrical effect from the Grand Canal façade through to the back of the building. For the decoration of the first staircase landing, Massari turned to his trusted sculptor, Giovan Maria Morlaiter, who is responsible for the large bas-relief that depicts Concord. It was the celebrated sculptor, who suggested his own son, Michelangelo, to execute the frescoes on the second landing. The architecture was painted by Francesco Zanchi \(active 1734-1772\). Morlaiter's decoration develops along the walls of the staircase space, at the level of the second landing. Inside seven large arches delimited by Ionic pilasters, he painted a large faux loggia, closed off at the back by a marble wall, against which statues of goddesses stand inside aedicules surmounted by rectangular tympanums. A carnival-like reception is under way on the loggia, and the participants include a number of elegant ladies and noblemen, some in wigs, some in three-cornered hats, as well as a prelate and an Eastern figure, all busy conversing amiably, or sipping coffee and liquors served by efficient waiters in livery. In spite of the fact that Morlaiter's authorship is well documented, in the nineteenth century the frescoes were attributed to several painters, among them Pietro Longhi. ## Related artworks - [Venetian Reception \(detail\)]() - [Venetian Reception \(detail\)]() - [Venetian Reception \(detail\)]() - [Venetian Reception \(detail\)]() - [Venetian Reception \(detail\)]() - [Venetian Reception \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()