Giovanni Battista Piazzetta workshop
The Virgin and Child with a Guardian Angel
Oil on canvas. 74 x 47.5 cm.
The composition of this painting is by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. It is related to one of his early works, a large altarpiece commissioned by the Venetian patrician Gherardo Sagredo and completed in 1718. The panel never reached the Scuola dell'Angelo Custode, for which it was intended, but remained in the house of its commissioner. Only a fragment of it still exists today in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Furthermore, a bozzetto of the composition is known in the County Museum in Los Angeles as well as a so-called ricordo in the Gemäldegalerie in Kassel.
This third version of the motif, comparable in its dimensions to the bozzetto or ricordo mentioned above, is apparently not recorded in art historical literature and is probably identical to a picture that was auctioned in Milan in 1992 as a work by Giulia Lama (Finarte, 3.12.1992, lot 64). Giulia Lama was indeed working in Piazzetta's workshop at the time the Madonna of Ca'Sagredo was painted, so this excellently rendered painting could well be one of her works. However, this cannot be proven. On the other hand, no other of Piazzetta's numerous pupils can be considered at this early date.
Provenance
Finarte, Milan 3.12.1992, lot 64. - Italian private collection.