Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Private Collection, Ireland;
Thence by descent.

Limerick, Art Gallery, Art Treasures in Thomond, 1952, no. 38;
Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Exhibition of Paintings from Irish Collections, 1957, no. 22.

R. Pallucchini, 'Veneti delle collezioni irlandesi', in Arte Veneta, 1957, p.258, fig. 263;
R. Pallucchini, 'Miscellanea Piazzetesca', in Arte Veneta, XXII, 1968, p. 119;
L. M. Jones, The paintings of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, New York University thesis 1981, p. 273, under cat. R21;
A. Mariuz, L'opera completa di Piazzetta, Milan 1982, p. 82, no. 29.

This condition report was provided by Sarah Walden who is an independent expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a very old lining, possibly even from the end of the eighteenth century, and a stretcher which could be original. There was evidently an early tear at the middle of the left edge, fortunately affecting mainly the background. There are other more recent dents nearby suggesting a certain amount of neglect and generally the picture appears to have been scarcely touched since the early repair and restoration. The vigorous impasted brushwork in the lighter areas is beautifully intact, as are much of the upper denser darks in the hair and the upper background. The more liquidly painted darker flesh painting has however suffered in the early cleaning, with thinness in parts of David's chest and the darker side of his face, and especially in the face of Goliath. The red hat on the left is slightly thin near the face beneath which is also rather worn, with the darker parts of the hand nearby. There is a heavy patch of ancient retouching over the old tear but essentially the early restoration was brisk and not involved in the careful retouching of rubbed patches. Elsewhere the vivid original paint and texture remains intact and strong. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
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Unseen now in public for over half a century, this dramatic canvas is a version of one of Piazzetta's most famous designs. This is the slightly larger canvas (84.5 x 99 cm.) today in Gemäldegalerie in Dresden (fig.1) ¹. The Dresden painting was acquired in Venice in 1743 by Count Francesco Algarotti for the celebrated Gallery of Augustus the Strong of Saxony in Dresden. It is generally dated by scholars to the years around 1730, although Knox prefers a later date around 1738-42 ².

The present work was first published by Pallucchini following its exhibition in Dublin in 1957, where it was suggested that it represented the modello for the Dresden painting. Pallucchini argued instead that the present work represented another, probably later, version by Piazzetta himself of the Dresden picture. However, he later revised his opinion, and proposed instead that it was 'una redazione di formato più piccolo e di chiaroscuro più intenso' and that it was in fact an earlier version, painted before that in Dresden. He proposed a dating almost a decade earlier, to the years 1720-25, comparing it to the altarpiece of the Madonna appearing to Saint Philip Neri of 1724-5 in Santa Maria della Fava in Venice ³. By contrast, in his view, the Dresden painting is much more finished in its handling and more even in its lighting. Mariuz agreed with this dating, also comparing it to the fragmentary altarpiece from Ca' Sagredo now in the Detroit Institute of Arts or the Young boy counting coins of around 1720 now in Boston ⁴. As he remarks, the figure of the young David, 'modellata dalla luce radente e tutta sbalzata in avanti' records Piazzetta's avowed intent, recorded by his biographer Giambattista Albrizzi, to render 'in atto pratico le positure , gli scorci, e gli atteggiamenti più difficili'' ('to render accurately the most difficult poses, attitudes and foreshortenings')  ⁵. The Dresden version is again, in his view, painted later and una replica, di esecuzione più raffinata. Leslie Jones more controversially went further in suggesting that the Dresden painting might actually be the work of Piazzetta's pupil Domenico Maggiotto ⁶. There are certainly a number of differences between the two paintings. The mood and lighting of the present work is notably darker, its chiaroscuro bolder, with barely a flicker of cloud to alleviate the darkness behind the two figures. Perhaps the most striking difference is the handling of the head of Goliath. Unbloodied and almost serene in the Dresden canvas, here the hair on the forehead is matted with blood, which trickles down to form a pool beneath the severed head itself. Even the stone from David's sling still glistens red,  while the sling itself, present in the Dresden version, is not introduced.

A stylistically closely related canvas, depicting Judith and Holofernes, and now in the Galleria dell'Accademia di San Luca in Rome, may well have served as a pendant to one of the two versions of the David ⁷. Its dimensions (81 by 94 cm.) are in fact closer to those of the present work than that in Dresden. As with the latter canvas, Pallucchini and Mariuz suggest an early dating around 1720 for the Rome picture, while Knox prefers a later dating around 1738-42. A related drawing, depicting David with the head of Goliath, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ⁸. Another copy is in the church of Chambon sur Voueize in France.
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1. For which see G. Knox, Giambattista Piazzetta 1682-1754, Oxford 1992, pp. 181-3, plate 131, reproduced.
2. Knox, op. cit., p. 183.
3. Ibid., p. 102, plate 81, reproduced.
4. Mariuz, op. cit., pp.78, no. 14 and 80, no. 22.
5. G.B. Albrizzi, Studi di pittura, Venice 1760.
6. Jones, op. cit., 1981, p. 272;
7. Mariuz, op. cit. p. 78, no. 18, colour plate XI.
8. Exhibited Washington, NAtional Gallery of Art, Piazzetta, 1983, no. 21.