Standing and Seated Figures in a Landscape with an Obelisk
Giovanni Battista Pittoni the Elder
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The drawing was listed by A.E. Popham as a work of an anonymous Venetian draftsman of the Sixteenth Century in the John B. Skippe collection catalogue of 1958 (Christie's, November 20-21, 1958, lot. 263B). The attribution was corrected to 'Circle of Nicolò dell'Abate' by Harry G. Sperling, who acquired the drawing during the Skippe sale and eventually donated the sheet to the Metropolitan Museum in 1975 (a hand-written annotation with this attribution remains on Sperling's own copy of the Skippe's catalogue in the Department of Drawings and Prints, MMA). Françoise Viatte in January of 1980 (written correspondance to Jacob Bean) recognized this drawing as a characteristic example of the work of Giovanni Battista Pittoni, a Veronese specialist in fantastic landscapes with Roman ruins. Pittoni's sprightly personality as a draughtsman has been defined in relation to his documented prints, and indeed drawings in the Witt Collection, London, the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, and the collection of Emile Wolf, New York, are preparatory studies for engraved landscapes. Alessandro Ballarin supplied a brief summary of Pittoni's work as a draughman in his article published on "Arte Veneta" (vol. 25,1971, pp. 104-05). (F.R.)
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.