Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

Pietro Antonio Novelli
Venice 1729 - 1804
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Study of a Philosopher: Portrait of an Old Man Reading a Book
Pen and brown ink and black and brown wash, heightened with white. Bears inscription:
Pierantonio Novelli Veneziano.
381 x 267 mm (15 x 10 ½ in.)
Provenance: The collector known as ‘The Reliable
Venetian Hand’ (L. 3005 c-d); the Strawberry Hill
sale (according to a note on the verso); Paul Sandby
(L.2112); Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan.
Exhibited: London, Colnaghi, Pictures from the
Grand Tour, November - December 1978, cat.65.
Now best known as a draughtsman, Novelli had a
highly successful career as a painter of large scale
works, in both oil and fresco, for the Church and the
Italian nobility; he also received commissions from
patrons further afield, including Catherine the Great
of Russia. Apprenticed to Giovanni Battista Pittoni,
he had an archetypal Venetian training and was
greatly influenced by the works of Francesco Guardi
and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Towards the end of the
century, Novelli moved to Rome and there quickly
developed a more neo-classical style. Still receiving
commissions from the north for religious works,
he also continued to paint frescoes in Padua and
Venice, but began to show a more academic style
less dominated by the so-called Venetian colorismo.
Novelli was a prolific book illustrator and, closely
connected to the Venetian book world, he became
a member of the Venetian Literary Academy and
his own memoirs were published posthumously in
1834. Novelli’s skill and versatility as a draughtsman
made him greatly in demand as a designer and
illustrator; his virtuoso penmanship led him to make
independent drawings done for their own sake as
well as series much in the manner of the Tiepolos.
This impressive head of a philosopher, dressed in the
sixteenth century manner with a ruff collar and slatted
sleeve, clearly reflects the influence of the paintings
and etchings of noble heads by Giambattista and
Giandomenico Tiepolo. Executed in pen and point
of the brush and wash this is a bravura work, full
of light and energy and painterly in its technique.
The philosopher type is a conceit which became
particularly popular in 18 th century Venice but the
popularity of the genre began earlier: Giambattista
Tiepolo certainly knew Rembrandt’s prints of bearded
old men in costumes as well as those of Castiglione
and amongst Venetian artists of the previous
generation, Pietro della Vecchia and Giuseppe
Nogari, were both similarly influenced 1 . With varied
touches of wash and line and the brightness added
by white heightening, Novelli has created a tête
d’expression giving the old man with his fine beard
and learned-looking skullcap the furrowed brow and
vivid eyes of a sceptic.
The exceptional quality and dynamic style of this
work caught the eyes of an interesting series of
collectors: the so-called Reliable Venetian Hand, a
still anonymous amateur of fine Venetian drawings 2 ,
Horace Walpole, the author and dilettante who built
Strawberry Hill and Paul Sandby, the watercolourist
and connoisseur, who also had an excellent collection
of drawings.
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