Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini Venice 1675 - 1741

Pellegrini, along with Sebastiano Ricci and Jacapo Amigoni, was one of the most important Venetian history painters of the 18^th century.  He traveled extensively throughout Europe, his sojourns greatly influencing the development of his artistic style. His signature work was celebrated for melding the Renaissance style of Veronese with the Baroque style of Pietro di Cortona and Luca Giordano, providing an essential connection between the paintings of the Venetian tradition and the Rococo style.

Though he traveled at length throughout the European continent, he is most well-known for his work in England from 1708 to 1715, where he was living at the invitation of the Charles Montagu, later the Duke of Manchester. His frescoes and canvases at Castle Howard (destroyed 1941), Narford Hall, and Kimbolton Castle are remarkable decorative schemes of elaborate theatricality. The present painting was completed at this time, according to George Knox. The subject, Minerva, was a favorite of Pellegrini’s. The depiction of the armored goddess who turns from war to serve as the patroness of learning and the arts seems wholly appropriate at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment.