So far as I am concerned, Tiepolo painted largely in vain.

I can admire the firm decision of his drawing and his skill in composition, but I can never lose the feeling that his right place is the wall of a restaurant or a theater curtain.

Still, since at the Palazzo Labia we find him decorating a banqueting hall with a secular subject, all is well.
But first to get in, for the Labia, once so sumptuous, is now the home of a hundred poor families, and the daughter of the concierge whose duty it is to display the frescoes prefers play to work.

For twenty minutes I waited in the gloomy, deserted hall while her father shuffles off in one direction and her mother in another, both calling "Emma!" "Emma!" with increasing degrees of fury.

Small boys and girls joined in the hunt until the neighbourhood had no other sound.