Giovanni Battista Pittoni

Bio

Giovanni Battista Pittoni is one of the foremost representatives of the Venetian Rococo, and in the eyes of his contemporaries ranked with Tiepolo and Piazzetta. First mentioned in the Libro della Fraglia Veneziana dei Pittori in 1716, he was the nephew and pupil of Francesco Pittoni (active between 1687 and 1712). In Pittoni’s early work, there are suggestions of Roman late Baroque painting which may be the result of his contact with Balestra (1666-1740) who was in Venice in 1700-18. In the 1720s and ‘30s, he produced light and vibrant pictures such as his Nativity of c.1720-23 (Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College) and the enormous Justice and Peace with Minerva and Jove of c.1730 (Venice, Palazzo Pesaro), whose nervous brushstrokes reveal the influence of Sebastiano Ricci (1659-l734) and G. B. Tiepolo (1696-1770). His mature output dates from the late ‘30s or early ‘40s (Madonna and Child with SS. Peter, Ambrose and Charles Borromeo, Bedizzole, S. Stefano) and shows a robust plasticity of form linked to a rich and fluid impasto. A sophisticated and attractive colourist (Cochin had criticised him for his ‘too beautiful colour’), Pittoni often evokes an elegant Arcadian mood close to that of contemporary French painting. A further lightening of his palette later in his career went hand in hand with tamer compositions, influenced by the general trend towards Neo-Classicism. Between 1722 and 1730 he executed four paintings for McSwiny’s magnificent series of allegorical tombs while counting von Schulenburg, the Principe Gabrielli in Rome, and the Royal Library in Turin as his important patrons. In the mid ‘30s he was in frequent correspondence with Juvarra regarding commissions for the royal court in Madrid.

His cabinet pictures of historical and religious subjects were much sought after by collectors in Germany, Poland, and Russia, especially by the Elector of Cologne, 1734 and 1749, and later after 1742-3, thanks to Algarotti, by the Saxon Court. Pittoni was Tiepolo’s successor as Director of the Venetian Academy of Painting and Sculpture between 1758 and 1760.