A firework

Two nearly symmetrical figures in eighteenth-century dress and powdered wigs stand at either side of the composition, encircled by thick garlands of pink roses; the boy at left holds a riding crop beside a horse's head, the girl at right holds a long-handled butterfly net. Between them a colonnaded walkway recedes toward a pale sky scattered with butterflies, moths, an empty birdcage, and hovering sparkling motes, with hummingbird-like birds perched in the lower corners.

The surface is built up with dense, jewel-like impasto and gilded texture, rose pinks and mossy greens dominating against a soft pearl-grey sky. Flattened, decorative patterning throughout gives the scene a hushed, emblematic quality, more ornamental tableau than narrative moment.