price: U.S. $9,000

MARCO PITTERI

1702 — Venice — 1786

Full-face Portrait of a Man with Long, Curly Hair

black chalk. 51/2 x 37/8" (138 x 97 mm). laid down to a cut down album leaf.

I am grateful to Professor Terisio Pignatti for recognizing Pitteri’s hand in this drawing. Prof. Pignatti has also kindly pointed out a group of comparable portrait drawings conserved in the Museo Correr, Venice, which he has published.1 The Correr drawings, in the tradition of Piazzetta, are from a dismembered album and are executed in black chalk. It is likely that the present drawing is from that same album, as the style, technique and size of the drawings are the same. Another drawing attributed by Pignatti to Pitteri is at Princeton.2

According to Benezit, Pitteri was an engraver of extraordinary virtuosity who learned in part from the example of Claude Mellan. The artist engraved both religious and mythological subjects as well as portraits.3
1

Terisio Pignatti, Disegni Antichi del Museo Correr di Venezia, Vol. V, Venice, 1996, pp.21-23, illust.

2

Pignatti, op. cit. where referred to on p. 160 under cat. # 1369.

3

E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Paris, 1976, Vol. 8, p. 368.