(Belluno 1689–1767 Venice) The Holy Family with Saint Anthony of Padua, oil on canvas, 85.8 x 83 cm, framed Provenance: Private European collection Literature: A.P. Zugni Tauro, Gaspare Diziani, Venice 1971, p. 88, fig. 154; B. Aikema, “Per Gaspare Diziani”, in: Bollettino. Musei Civici Veneziani XXV, N.S. 1-4 (1980), pp. 12, 16, fig.16 We are grateful to Professor Bernard Aikema for confirming the attribution and for suggesting a date to the late 1730s or the 1740s for the present composition. This was Diziani’s most productive period. Aikema relates the present painting with a preparatory study in the collection of the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, where the sheet (see fig.1) was previously attributed to Pietro Bardellino (see Aikema 1980). Zugni Tauro believed the work was a bozzetto for an as yet unidentified altarpiece. However according to Aikema the picture does not appear to be a spontaneously executed work but appears to be a finished work executed for a private commission. The present painting depicts the Holy Family with a Franciscan Saint identifiable as Saint Anthony of Padua through his attribute, a lily. We are grateful to Professor Bernard Aikema for his help in cataloguing this work.

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