Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Private collection, Venice, by 1956;

Ian Woodner Family Collection, New York;

From whom acquired by Stanley Moss, 1993.

R. Pallucchini, Piazzetta, Milan 1956, p. 18, reproduced fig. 20 (as Piazzetta);

R. Pallucchini and A. Mariuz, L'Opera completa del Piazzetta, Milan 1982, cat. no. A137, reproduced (as Piazzetta or Circle of Piazzetta).

This sketch-like pastoral scene of two peasants and an ox relates to an autographed and dated (1743) red chalk drawing in the Royal Library of Turin, of which there are counter-proofs in the Gallerie dell' Accademia in Venice and the Morgan Library in New York (inv. no. 1961.12:92). In 1956, Ridolfo Palluchini first identified this panel as a work by Piazzetta, an attribution subsequently endorsed by George Knox via private correspondence (available upon request) in February 1992.