GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAZZETTA

THE CRUCIFIXION WITH SAINT FRANCIS

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAZZETTA
Venezia 1683 – 1754 Venezia

THE CRUCIFIXION WITH SAINT FRANCIS

Oil on canvas
73 x 54 cm / 29 x 21 inches, with frame 83 x 54 cm / 33 x 25 inches

PROVENANCE
Germany, private collection

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Venice, 1682 - 1754)
Crucifixion with Saint Francis
oil on canvas, cm. 73 x 54.

The small painting should be an early work by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta around 1710.

In this period, this artist created some Crucifixions found in Venice, in the Galleria dell'Accademia, with a Crucifixion between two thieves, (see A. Mariuz, L’opera completa del Piazzetta, Milano 1982, p. 75, n. 4) with almost the same dimensions as that of Maximowicz's gallery. Another canvas of the same period with the only Crucifixion is found in the Parish Church of the Nativity of the Virgin of Prcanj in Macedonia, attributed to the Piazzetta by G.Gamulin, Tri djela Venecijanskih Slikara u Jugoslaviji, in «Radovi Seminara za Povijest i Umjetnost», Zagreb, 1958. Another crucifix with the same dimensions is found in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice from 1923, coming from the Oratory of the Filippini, annexed to the Church of Santa Maria della Fava (see A. Mariuz, L’opera completa del Piazzetta, Milano 1982, p. 79, n. 19). Another painting with a Crucifixion is in Milan, in the Pinacoteca di Brera (depots), published in the Fototeca of Federico Zeri, n. 67143. The painting was engraved by Marco Pitteri, whose print is in Venice in the Museo Correr (St, PD 888) (see A.Dorigato, Giovanbattista Piazzetta e l’incisione veneziana del Settecento, in Giovanbattista Piazzetta . Il suo tempo, la sua scuola, Venezia 1983, p. 183, n. 80). The style of Giovanbattista Piazzetta in this Crucifixion we can compare it with other of his certain paintings such as the Resurrection of Christ, of the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, where the figure of Christ approaches that of the Crucifixion of the Maximowicz's gallery. The body of Christ in this Gallery can also be compared with the Beheading of the Baptist of the Venerable Ark of Saint Anthony of Padua (see U. Ruggeri, U.Ruggeri, Giovanbattista Piazzetta,Il suo tempo, la sua scuola, Venezia 1983, pp. 108-109).
Giulia Lama (Venice, 1681 - 1747), a pupil of the Piazzetta, performs a Crucifixion and saints, in Venice, in the Church of San Vidal, executed between 1726 and 1732, which deviates considerably in style from the Crucifixion of the Maximowicz's gallery, therefore to exclude this artist from her previous attribution

Florence, October, 2019,
Roberto Ciabattini.