13 Facts About Giambattista Pittoni

Giambattista Pittoni or Giovanni Battista Pittoni was a Venetian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period.

Giambattista Pittoni was among the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, of which in 1758 he became the second president, succeeding Tiepolo.

Giambattista Pittoni studied under his uncle Francesco Pittoni, a well-known but undistinguished painter of the Venetian Baroque; a Samson and Delilah at the Villa Querini in Visinale, near Pasiano di Pordenone, is signed by both painters.

The theory of Rodolfo Pallucchini that Pittoni studied under Antonio Balestra is generally discounted.

Giambattista Pittoni was unwilling to leave Venice and travelled little; although he received many foreign commissions, no journey in connection with any of them is documented, while from 1720 onwards records show that he was in Venice in every year.

Giambattista Pittoni joined the Fraglia dei Pittori Veneziani, the Venetian guild of painters, in 1716.

Giambattista Pittoni was elected to the Accademia Clementina of Bologna in 1727.

Giambattista Pittoni's tomb is in the church of San Giacomo dell'Orio, Venice.

Giambattista Pittoni had a high reputation during his lifetime, both within the Italian peninsula and elsewhere in Europe.

Giambattista Pittoni was much in demand in Italy, and supplied altarpieces for churches in Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Padova, Verona and Vicenza.

Giambattista Pittoni was a skillful restorer of older paintings; he was often selected as restorer or inspector of the quadri pubblici, the state-owned paintings of the Serenissima.

Giambattista Pittoni sold nine paintings to the soldier-turned-collector Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg, but advised him both on art and on art restoration.

Interest in him was revived in the twentieth century by the publications of Laura Coggiola Giambattista Pittoni, beginning with Dei Giambattista Pittoni, Artisti Veneti in 1907.