The Emperor Honorius elects Costantius his co-governor

Giambattista Pittoni painted The Emperor Honorius Elects Constantius His Co-Governor around 1740, depicting a scene from the declining Western Roman Empire when Emperor Honorius named Constantius III as co-emperor in 421 AD. Pittoni was one of the leading Venetian painters of the eighteenth century, a president of the Venetian Academy, and a painter whose elegant, theatrically composed history paintings were collected across Europe from Stockholm to Madrid. His classical historical subjects reflect the continued vitality of large-scale history painting in the Venetian tradition, even as the Republic itself was in political decline.

Pittoni arranges the imperial court scene with the fluid, spiraling composition characteristic of Venetian Rococo painting, with figures disposed across a grand architectural setting. His palette of luminous pastels and warm golds, combined with the theatrical gestures and billowing draperies of the figures, demonstrates the decorative grandeur that made Venetian eighteenth-century painting internationally influential.