Circle of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

This painting is closely related to an engraving by Marco Alvise Pitteri (1702–1786) after a design by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682–1754).¹ The most comparable known painting by Piazzetta, previously in the Guillion Mangilli collection, Venice, differs from the engraving in some minor details, as demonstrated most obviously by its omission of the crucifix.² This likely suggests that the engraving and the present painting are instead both after another, now lost picture.³

¹ M. Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel (ed.), L'eredità di Piazzetta: volti e figure nell'incisione del Settecento, Venice 1996, p. 24, no. 24, reproduced.

² A. Mariuz and R. Pallucchini, L'opera completa del Piazzetta, Milan 1982, p. 108, no. 136, reproduced.

³ Alternatively, Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel has proposed that the engraving could reproduce a drawing derived from the Guillion Mangilli painting.