Most of Opiz’s erotic work dates from around 1830, when the artist was living in Leipzig, and follow in the tradition of drawings that were being produced by Thomas Rowlandson in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and erotic Japanese woodblock prints from the late eighteenth century by artists like Utamoro.

Around forty different Opiz erotic prints are known, of which this collection of sixteen appear to have been the most popular. The title is probably an advertising ploy referring to the artist’s somewhat tenuous link with the famous Venetian lover Giacomo Casanova.

When the Erotic Print Society reissued the collection in 2000, they titled it The Venetian Carnival, and the set was accompanied by an introductory descriptive text by the artist Christopher Hart.