Description

One of Venice’s leading painters, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta transformed the gritty realism and dramatic light effects of earlier Baroque painting into his own poetic style. This is one of two paintings of life-size, rustic ﬁgures that Piazetta made for his patron, Field Marshall Johann Matthias von der Schulenberg. Their meaning remains mysterious. The half-naked boy holding a basket of grapes has been interpreted as the infant Bacchus, the god of wine, although Piazzetta made no reference in his description of the work to a symbolic meaning. The artist was probably responding to his patron’s taste for pastoral scenes, a genre that appealed to middle- and upper-class city dwellers for its idealized views of rural life.

Provenance

Commissioned by Marshall Schulenburg, Venice, by 1743 [his inventory 1743, Royal Academy 1954–55, no. 510]; his heirs; sold to Mr. Greenwood in 1774 [Binion 1994, pp. 98–99]; his sale at Christie’s, London, April 13, 1775, no. 41 or 42; Guida da Faenza Collection; his sale, Rome, 1902 [letter from M. D. Koetser, dated February 27, 1936, in curatorial file]; 17th-Century Gallery, London, 1917 [unsubstantiated note in curatorial file and Maxon and Rishel 1970, p. 88]. Auction London, 1935; G. H. Winterbottom, London; Jacob Heimann, Milan, 1936 [letter from Heimann to Art Institute of Chicago, dated April 25, 1937]; M. D. and D. M. Koetser, London, 1936 [Koetser letter, cited above]; purchased by Art Institute, 1937.

Pastoral Scene

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

1740

Accession Number

23333

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

191.8 × 143 cm (75 1/2 × 56 1/4 in.); Framed: 208.3 × 158.8 × 10.2 cm (82 × 62 1/2 × 4 in.)

Classification

oil on canvas

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection