Kopf eines jungen Mädchens (Barbara Piazzetta?), ca. 1745

About the Work

Piazzetta, one of the most sought-after history painters in Venice, executed a large number of “character heads” and portraits which served as studies, but also as collector’s items for art admirers. Thanks to copies by his pupils as well as engraved reproductions, these works were widely circulated and contributed to the artist’s renown in Venice and beyond. It was presumably Piazzetta’s sixteen-year-old daughter Barbara who sat for this rendering. The work owes its vitality to the soft modelling of the forms and the interplay between the light and dark sections, which give the head of the young girl plasticity: It appears to project from the picture surface in a lifelike fashion.