(Venice 1687–1767)
Isaac blessing Jacob,
oil on canvas, 79 x 96 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Southern Germany

We are grateful to Professor Bernard Aikema, for confirming the attribution after examining the painting in the original. We are also grateful to Dottoressa Annalisa Scarpa for independently endorsing the attribution on the basis of a photograph.

The present painting is an impressive and characteristic work from Giovanni Battista Pittoni’s early period. The protagonists are rendered as half-length figures within a narrow space and, due to their sharp outlines, vigorously stand out against the chiaroscuro. The artist has created an illusion of depth through the table in the left foreground and the arrangement of the figures behind it. A drawing in the Museo Correr in Venice (see ill.) demonstrates the formal genesis of the composition. However, due to the oval format of the drawing, it is uncertain whether it really served as a preliminary design for the present painting, although it must be closely related to it (see F. Zava Boccazzi, Pittoni, Venice, 1979, cat. no. D.45, p. 213, fig. 30).

An almost identical variant of the present painting, which differs only very slightly (in the present composition, an additional chunk of bread appears on the table) was formerly in the Richard Buckle Collection, London (see Boccazzi, ibid., 1979 cat. no. 253). Zava Boccazzi dates the former London painting to around 1720. Another version of the subject in which the protagonists are depicted as full-length figures is in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (see F. Zava Boccazzi, ibid., cat, no. 75). This painting still reveals references to 17th-century painting and an influence from Francesco Pittoni, the artist’s uncle and teacher.

Stylistically, the present painting is related to the Sacrifice of Isaac in the church of San Francesco della Vigna in Venice (see F. Zava Boccazzi, ibid., cat. no. 204). The pictorial invention relies on a copper engraving by Francesco Berardi (see F. Zava Boccazzi, ibid., cat. no. I.11) in which the relationship between the figures of Isaac and Jacob is very similar. On the other hand, Rebecca’s face seems older in the present picture and clearly shows more realistic features. The figure of the blessing, bearded Isaac anticipates Pittoni’s two pictures of Saint Jerome (Florence, ex Cecconi Collection; Rimini, Museo Civico).

Together with Giambattista Tiepolo and Piazzetta, Pittoni was an important history painter of the Venetian Rococo. Besides altarpieces for Venetian and other churches, and also devotional images for private clients on both sides of the Alps, he painted subjects from mythology and classical literature in a Rococo idiom all his own, with a light and broken style of brushwork. Pittoni was also held in particular esteem outside Italy, especially in Dresden and Cologne, but also in Poland, Bohemia, and Spain. Pittoni was successful in his lifetime and was respected by his fellow Venetian painters, who elected him to important offices in their professional association, the Collegio dei Pittori. In 1729 he was elected prior of the Collegio and was one of the founder-members of the Venetian Accademia; he became its second president in 1763, succeeding Tiepolo. His influence in Central Europe was remarkable. Here his style was transmitted by his student Anton Kern, who had returned to his native Bohemia in 1735.

Another version of the painting similar to the Buckle version is in Vienna, Museum im Schottenstift (oil on canvas, 77 x 102 cm).

additional picture:
Giovanni Battista Pittoni, Drawing from the Museo Correr, Venice