Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (Venice, 1675 – 1741) Alexander Before the Body of Darius Oil on paper, laid down on canvas 11 ½ x 15 ⅝ inches (29.2 x 39.7 cm) Provenance: Bartolo Bracaglia, New York, by 1961 with P & D Colnaghi, London, December 1971; where acquired by: Private Collection, USA Exhibited: “Venetian Paintings of the Eighteenth Century,” New York, Finch College Museum of Art, 1 October – 16 December 1961, no. 31. Detroit Institute of Arts, November 1964. Literature: A Loan Exhibition of Venetian Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1961, cat. no. 31. Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini was Venetian by birth, but an international artist in life. His extensive travels not only shaped his own artistic development, but through his extremely influential work, provided an essential connection between paintings of the Venetian tradition and the Rococo style throughout Europe. At an early age he followed his first master Paolo Pagani to Austria, remaining there for six years. He returned to Italy in 1696 and traveled to Rome in 1700 before returning to Venice two years later. He remained in Venice and the Veneto until 1708, when Charles Montagu (later Duke of Manchester) invited him to England. His later career took him to Germany, France, Flanders, and Austria. Although the present work was previously considered to be by Giovanni Battista Pittoni, Robert L. Manning and later Federico Zeri properly recognized Pellegrini’s authorship of this oil sketch. Our bozzetto relates directly to a large canvas by Pellegrini now in Soissons (Fig. 1). Once thought to represent Achilles viewing the body of Patroclus, the painting rather depicts Alexander the Great with the body of the defeated Persian King Darius...