Estimate
€ 30.000 - 50.000
Sold
€ 113.490
The price includes buyer's premium
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Information
oil on canvas
cm 96.5 x 130
cm 96.5 x 130
Literature
E. Martini, La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Venezia 1964, p. 78, p. 216 n. 166 e tav. 153;
F. Zava Boccazzi, Pittoni. L’opera completa, Venezia 1979, p. 143 (citato)
Traditionally attributed to Jacopo Amigoni in the collection of provenance, the present painting (lot 189) and the one in the following lot (lot 190) are exceptional pictorial works, already known in literature, by Giambattista Pittoni, very happy expressions of his exquisite Rococo taste which here, in the elegant bodies of Venus and Diana, combines the sweetest femininity with a refined eroticism, immortalising a timeless beauty.
The works were published, with black and white illustrations, by Egidio Martini in 1964 in his famous volume dedicated to Venetian painting (E. Martini, La pittura veneziana del Settecento , Venice 1964, p. 78, p. 216 n. 166, plate 153 and fig. 149) and subsequently cited in the monograph by Zava Boccazzi (F. Zava Boccazzi, Pittoni , Venice 1979, p. 143).
Unpublished at the time of Martini's publication, the scholar notes the paintings in a private Roman collection and places their execution around 1755, therefore close to the Annunciation of 1757 at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.
Zava Boccazzi, who specifies that he knows the canvases only through Martini's photographs, compares them, due to their evident iconographic and compositional affinities, to the series of mythological subjects to which Pittoni devoted himself in the 1720s. The fulcrum of this repertoire is the Diana with the Nymphs from the Civic Museums of Vicenza (inv. A 97), to which are added Juno and Argus and Venus and Mars from a private collection (F. Zava Boccazzi, Pittoni , p. 143, no. 113 and 114, figs. 65-66), Diana and Endymion from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (inv. GE-2451) and two other versions of Venus and Mars , one in London ( ibidem , no. 90, fig. 85) and one in the Louvre in Paris (inv. MNR 668).
For the Diana and Venus, offered here at auction, which although undoubtedly present a taste very similar to this mythological series, the scholar suggests a more advanced dating due to the "thick and soft drapery", a stylistic feature of the mid-fourth decade ( ibidem , p. 143).
The protagonists of the two compositions find effective comparisons not only in the mythological scenes just mentioned but also in other famous compositions by Pittoni. Consider, for example, the putti that animate the backgrounds of the numerous sacred works executed by the Venetian master and that, in terms of features and stylistic traits, recall the cupids of our paintings: in particular, the face of the cupid in Diana returns almost identically in the monumental altarpiece with Saint Jerome, Saint Peter of Alcantara and another saint in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, here almost hidden in the background at the top left; the blindfolded cupid fluttering around Venus is a recurring motif in the artist's production, replicated several times with variations in pose, for example in the Hercules and Omphale in Palazzo Corsini in Rome and in the Bacchus and Ariadne in the Louvre. Also familiar within Pittoni's pictorial production is Diana's faithful little dog, which we find in the same pose both in the San Rocco in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart (ibidem , fig. 152) and in the Diana and Endymion in a private collection (ibidem , fig. 182) and, with some variations, in many other works.
Considered lost by Zava Boccazzi in 1979, the Venus with cupids and the Sleeping Diana with cupid have re-emerged on the market today together with a third work depicting Apollo playing the lyre with two putti (lot 191), of equal executive quality and certainly belonging to the same series, but which finds no confirmation in the bibliography.
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