Description

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini received his first painting education in Venice with Paolo Pagani and lived six years in Germany with his master, who on his return to Italy sent him for two years – from 1700 – to Rome to refine his studies. If the first part of his activity was concentrated between Venice and Padua, the artist’s success came mainly abroad. In 1708, he embarked on a trip to London with his colleague Marco Ricci, then headed alone to other important European cities: he painted in Düsseldorf for the Electoral Prince John William and then travelled to Bavaria, Antwerp, Dresden, Paris, and Vienna. Although Pellegrini’s Rococo style was best expressed in the large decorations of the palaces that he was called upon to decorate, he nevertheless distinguished him self in small and medium-sized paintings, as in the case of Lot and his daughters. Although the painter’s example in the great “scenic machines” he constructed in the great cycles of frescoes is Rubens, this tension in the break-up of the stroke and the always dramatic tension of the event depicted, maintains all its creative freedom even in more discreet and private works, with a distinctly sensual charge, as in this case.

Bibl.: A. Bettagno (a cura di), P. Il maestro veneto del Rococò alle corti d’Europa (catal., Padova 1998-1999), testi di A. Mariuz, G. Knox e F. Zava Boccazzi, Venezia 1998, con bibl.