Giovanni Battista Pittoni

Giovanni Battista Pittoni (1687–1767) was born in Venice and trained under his uncle, the painter Francesco Pittoni. He seldom left the city: from 1720 onwards records place him there every year, and around that time his style moved from a heavy Baroque towards a lighter, more delicate Rococo manner. His reputation in his lifetime reached well beyond Italy. Augustus II and Augustus III of Poland, Clemens August of Bavaria and Philip V of Spain were among his patrons, and he supplied altarpieces to churches in Bergamo, Brescia, Milan, Padua, Verona and Vicenza. He was also a skilled restorer, often chosen to restore or inspect the Venetian state's paintings. In 1750 he was one of the founding members of the academy that became the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, and in 1758 he succeeded Tiepolo as its president. Forgotten by the end of the eighteenth century, he was rediscovered in the twentieth. Here: Christ Giving the Keys to Saint Peter.