Casanova Collection, Bologna - Tito Miotti Collection
(Udine 1913 - 2002) (his stamp at the bottom left L4259)
Expositions
1959, Venezia, Fondazione Cini
"Disegni e dipinti di Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini". n° 83 (described
and reproduced in the exhibition catalogue)
Literature
Alessandro Bettagno - Disegini e dipinti di Giovanni
Antonio Pellegrini 1675-1741 (Catalogo della Mostra) - Neri Pozza Editore Venezia 1959
This masterly frontispiece study, executed with a very
sure hand, testifies to the survival of the great Baroque taste in 18th century
Venice. It could be one of the very last works by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini:
the few lines that cross the papal arms evoke those of Benedict XIV, who became
pope in 1740, one year before the artist's death.
1. Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and the European influence
of Venetian history painting in the 18th century
Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was born in Venice in 1675
and trained in the studio of the Milanese painter Paolo Pagani (1655 - 1716).
Pagani, who had been living in Venice since 1667, took him to Moravia and
Vienna from 1690 to 1696. After a stay in Rome from 1699 to 1701, Pellegrini married
Angiola Carriera in 1704, the sister of the great pastelist Rosalba Carriera.
From 1708 onwards, Pellegrini left Venice and began an
extensive tour of Europe: he worked in England between 1708 and 1713, where he
met great success, particularly at Kimbolton Castle and Castle Howard. He then worked
in Germany and the Netherlands, then in Bohemia and Austria, before returning briefly
to England in 1719. In 1720 he was in Paris where he decorated the ceilings of
the Royal Bank for John Law before returning to Venice in 1721.
He continued to alternate between important
commissions abroad (he was also accepted by the Royal Academy of Painting in
Paris in 1733) and stays in Venice where he settled permanently in 1737.
Gifted with an immense facility of execution, Pellegrini
is considered the great precursor of Tiepolo, even if the destruction of many
of his decorations throughout Europe (Castle Howard, the ceilings of the Royal Bank
and Mannheim Castle...) makes it more difficult to appreciate his work today.
2.
Description of the artwork
Pellegrini gives free rein to his baroque spirit in
the composition of this frontispiece: while three putti bustle around a shield
surmounted by the papal tiara, three winged figures (featuring Virtues?) present
the cartouche on which the text of the frontispiece is to be inscribed. The
motif is entirely executed in a supple pen stroke and the figures are brought
to life by the ink wash.
The composition of this drawing is reminiscent of a
ceiling study, and in this small work, which was probably intended for
engraving, we find the breath of the large-scale decorations in which
Pellegrini excelled.
The presence of the crosshatching on the papal arms
evokes the Lambertini family coat of arms (“D’oro a tre pali di rosso”)
and suggests that this design may have been commissioned shortly after the
election of Benedict XIV on August 17th, 1740. It is amusing to see
below the shield one of the three putti wearing a cardinal's hat that he has
stolen, as if to suggest that it was no longer necessary for the newly elected
pope...
The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm has another
frontispiece project by Pellegrini executed in the same lively and playful style.