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Pastoral Scene

A light-skinned woman, the bodice of her mauve dress pulled down, lounges against a rock, her arm extended on it. A child, mostly nude, stands in front of her looking downward while two men in her party, largely in shadow, lean toward each other as if in conversation.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A light-skinned woman, the bodice of her mauve dress pulled down, lounges against a rock, her arm extended on it. A child, mostly nude, stands in front of her looking downward while two men in her party, largely in shadow, lean toward each other as if in conversation.

Date:

1740

Artist:

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Italian, 1682-1754

About this artwork

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.

Status

On View, Gallery 217

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Title

Pastoral Scene

Place

Italy (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1735–1745

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

191.8 × 143 cm (75 1/2 × 56 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection

Reference Number

1937.68

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/23333/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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