PITTONI, Giambattista

Of the many painters who followed Sebastiano Ricci and Pellegrini, very few achieved results of any degree of originality. Of those who did Giambattista Pittoni turned the lessons of Ricci to his own use in a personal style whose elegant, rhythmic composition and delicate tonal clarity clearly announce his involvement in the world of rococo. Pittoni’s taste for virtuoso display intensified still further towards the end of his career. It was in this period (1758) that he painted the ‘Annunciation’ to decorate the ‘stanza dello studio’ of the Old Academy which had been founded in 1750 at the Fonteghetto della Farina. The theatrical layout of the composition and the precious refinement of the drawing lend the sacred subject the air of an animated ballet with wonderfully fresh chromatic harmonies.

Attended by maids, Uriah’s beautiful wife, Bathsheba, devotes herself to her elaborate toilette in a garden. The sight of Bathsheba inflamed King David’s desire, and he is depicted in the background. Here, however, a maid approaches on the right with a letter from the king.

Sophonisba was the daughter of a Carthaginian general at the time of the second Punic war. She married a prince of neighbouring Numidia, allied to Rome, and succeeded in alienating him from his Roman masters. But he was captured by another Numidian leader Masinissa, who in turn fell in love with Sophonisba, and likewise married her. To prevent the loss of a second ally from the same cause the Roman general Scipio demanded that she be surrendered and sent captive to Rome. Her husband, not daring to defy Scipio, sent her a cup of poison which she drank.

Sophonisba’s death is a popular theme among Baroque painters of Italy and northern Europe.

This painting depicts Hagar in the desert comforted by an angel.

Hagar, the Egyptian hand maiden of Sarah was the mother of Ishmael, Abraham’s first son. When Isaac, Sarah’s son, was born Ishmael mocked his younger brother so that Sarah asked Abraham to banish him, together with his mother. Abraham provided them with bread and a bottle of water and sent them off into the desert of Beersheba. When the water was spent Hagar put Ishmael under a bush to die and then sat some way off, weeping. But an angel appeared, by tradition the archangel Michael, and disclosed a well of water near by, so they were both saved. Two scenes, the banishment, and the appearance of the angel are common in 17th century Italian and Dutch painting.

This painting is the companion piece to Nicola Grassi’s Rebecca at the Well in the same church. It was inspired by a work on the same subject by Federico Bencovich (now in the Strossmayer Gallery, Zagreb) and was the product of a period of figurative development and orientation.

This lively small picture was a sketch for the altarpiece of the castle chapel of the Teutonic Knights at Mergentheim, commissioned by Clement August, Elector of Cologne, in 1734. The innumerable versions and copies in existence (Augsburg, City Museum; Bremen, Kunsthalle; Munich, Salzburg, private collections, etc.) indicate that Pittoni’s composition was extremely popular and imitated by many German and Austrian painters. From the loose semi-circle of kneeling, sitting and recumbent paupers the white-robed figure of the princess stands out triumphantly, her outstretched arms bringing the groups of starving men and women into a close circle. The gestures are graceful and dainty, the proportions elongated, the colouring dominated by the pale blues and lemon-yellows favoured by Pittoni.

This half-length devotional picture was painted as an offering for the St Roch Confraternity of Venice. Together with many other similar gifts, paintings by Tiepolo, Piazzetta, Diziani, etc., the picture was presented by the Scuola di San Rocco at the August celebration of the society. Another picture of St Roch by Pittoni, similar to that in the Budapest Museum, is mentioned at the close of the 18th century in the Silvestri Collection of Rovigo (now in the Accademia dei Concordi, Rovigo).

The painting was made for an altar in the nave of the Venetian church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. The church was run by Franciscan nuns and in the foreground is a Franciscan friar who can be identified as the renowned sixteenth-century Spanish preacher St Peter of Alcantara. The altarpiece was originally arched at the top.

This painting served as the working model for the artist’s painting in the church of Santa Maria Maddalene dei Padri Cappuccini in Parma. The subject is the closing scene in the life of the Saint, after she had renounced her worldly goods and retired to a hermitage.

In this painting the figures take up almost all of the pictorial space, the background is quite summary, mainly consisting of sky. Just a few palm trees on the left and some rocks serve to indicate the location of the figures. This is because the viewpoint is an extremely low one, the figures are portrayed as if we are seeing them from some way beneath. This suggests that the canvas was intended to be placed high up, above a doorway, for example, as was common in interior decorative schemes at this period.

Polyxena was a daughter of Priam, king of Troy. The Greek hero Achilles, though on the opposite side in the Trojan war, fell in love with her at first sight. According to one tradition Polyxena brought about his death by a plot. After the sack of Troy by the Greeks the ghost of Achilles appeared to the other Greek chieftains and demanded that Polyxena be sacrificed on his tomb. This was carried out. Polyxena is beside the tomb, the executioner is Neoptolemus the son of Achilles. Agamemnon, the Greek leader who dissented from the sacrifice, is seen pleading in vain.

To the testament of Andrea Stazio, a Venetian nobleman who died in 1722, we owe a cycle of paintings of great importance in the history of Venetian art. The will provided that twelve canvases should be painted for the church of San Stae (Venetian for St Eustace). All similar in size, they depict episodes in the lives of the Apostles and their martyrdom. The commission was given to twelve different Venetian painter, ranging from the aged Nicolò Bambini, then seventy-one, through to Giambattista Tiepolo, almost at the start of his career.

All the paintings were completed within a few months, in 1722 and early 1723. The artists were the following in alphabetic order: Antonio Balestra, Nicolò Bambini, Gregorio Lazzarini, Silvestro Manaigo, Giambattista Mariotti, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, Giambattista Piazzetta, Giambattista Pittoni, Sebastiano Ricci, Giambattista Tiepolo, Angelo Trevisano and Pietro Uberti. They vied with each other to transform the church into a remarkable showcase of currents and developments in eighteenth-century Venetian art.

Pittoni’s painting is part of the cycle of the Apostles. Despite the cruelty of the subject, the painter’s rendering is notable for its grace and delicacy. Pittoni, one of the most brilliant eighteenth-century artists, produced a number of other works for San Stae.