GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAZZETTA | SAINT JEROME EMILIANI

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 3 November 1999, lot 213;

There acquired by Charles Blakiston Ashburner, Virginia, until 2010.

A. Mariuz and R. Pallucchini, L'opera complete del Piazzetta, Milan 1982, cat. no. 204 (as a lost painting by Piazzetta known from the engraving by Antonio Baratti);

M.A. Chiari Moretto Wiel (ed.), L'eredità di Piazzetta. Volti e figure nell'incisione del Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Venice 1996, p. 68, cat. no. 135 (as a lost painting by Piazzetta known from the engraving by Antonio Baratti);

A. Loda, "San Girolamo Emiliani ncll'iconografia dci tcrritori bergamaschi e bresciani," in Angelo Loda (ed.), Itinerarium Caritas. Girolamo Emiliani Padre dei Oifani, exhibition catalogue, Romano di Lombardia 2018, p. 36 (as an original by Piazzetta, after which copies exist).

Giovanni Piazzetta was a Venetian Rococo artist who studied under Giovanni Maria Crespi. Among his most notable works are his highly individualized depictions of saints, all of different ages and physiognomies. Here the emblem of a crucifix resting on a ball and shackle identify the saint as Jerome Emiliani, patron saint of orphans and abandoned children.

George Knox was the first to recognize this painting as Piazzetta's lost depiction of Saint Jerome (see Literature), which was previously known only from engravings.¹

1. Antonio Baratti, Marco Pitteri, Pietro Perfetti, and Giovanni Petrini engraved this composition.