Giovanni Battista Pittoni

Private collection, Bayern;
Anonymous sale, Munich, Hampel, 5 December 2008, lot 262 (as attributed to Francesco Salvator Fontebasso);
There acquired by the present collector.

London, Hallsborough Gallery, From Butinone to Chagall: Fine Paintings and Drawings of Six Centuries, 12 May – 23 July 1965, no. 28.

Hallsborough Gallery, From Butinone to Chagall: Fine Paintings and Drawings of Six Centuries, exhibition catalogue, London 1965, pp. 54-55, cat. no. 28, reproduced fig. 54;
G.M. Pilo, Sebastiano Ricci e  la pittura veneziana del settecento, Pordenone 1976, p. 156, reproduced fig. 96;
F. Zava Boccazzi, Pittoni, Venice 1979, p. 154, cat. no. 158, reproduced figs. 240 and 247.

The old glue relining is firm and stable. Under a dull varnish. Overall the paint surface has been very well retained and there is good detail throughout the figures and foreground. There is some slight thinness in the sky and architecture, which have been slightly pressed in the relining, however these areas still read well. Under UV light: there are some older retouches scattered here and there in the background and on figures, including on the face of Polyxena and on her chest and arm. A few more recent retouches on top of the old varnish can be seen on the figure of the boy at far right, on the bottom of the drapery of the kneeling female figure at right, and along bottom edge. Painting is presentable and could be hung as is. Offered in a carved and gilt wood frame.
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First published on the occasion of its exhibition in 1965 (see Literature and Exhibited), this Sacrifice of Polyxena by Giambattista Pittoni dates to around 1735.  Polyxena was a Trojan princess with whom Achilles fell in love; the marriage between the two was intended to end the Trojan war, but the wedding was ambushed by Polyxena’s brother, Paris, who shot a fatal arrow at Achilles’ heel, mortally wounding him. This painting depicts the moment in which Achilles’ vengeful ghost returns to demand Polyxena be sacrificed, a fate she appears nobly to accept.  The subject is one to which Pittoni returned repeatedly, depicting the scene in three variants, each listed by Franca Zava Boccazzi in her monograph under three categories (see Literature).  The present composition belongs to the group similar to the version now in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.¹  Unusually though, it includes elements from the horizontally elongated  compositions, like that in the Palazzo Taverna e Monte Giordano, Rome, such as the presence of just two priests rather than three, the twisting pose of the child holding a platter at right and the inclusion of the flaming brazier and girl knelt at Polyxena’s feet.²

 

1. For the Stuttgart “type A” canvas see F. Zava Boccazzi under Literature, p. 161, cat. no. 186, reproduced fig. 234.
2. For the Rome “type C” canvas see Zava Boccazzi, op. cit., p. 156-157, cat. no. 166, reproduced figs. 271-227.