

Pastoral Scene
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682–1754)
1740
View the original$17
Type
Size
Secure checkout · powered by Stripe
Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and shipped in 5–8 business days. US shipping only for now. Changed your mind? See our return policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A flat 20% margin — just enough to keep the store running. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
One of Venice’s leading painters, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta transformed the gritty realism and dramatic light effects of earlier Baroque painting into his own poetic style. This is one of two paintings of life-size, rustic figures that Piazetta made for his patron, Field Marshall Johann Matthias von der Schulenberg. Their meaning remains mysterious. The half-naked boy holding a basket of grapes has been interpreted as the infant Bacchus, the god of wine, although Piazzetta made no reference in his description of the work to a symbolic meaning. The artist was probably responding to his patron’s taste for pastoral scenes, a genre that appealed to middle- and upper-class city dwellers for its idealized views of rural life.
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682–1754)
- Date
- 1740
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Origin
- Italy
- Style
- Realism
- Collection
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Reference
- 1937.68 · Art Institute of Chicago