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Lot Essay
Along with its pendant picture, The Dead Abel (private collection, sold Sotheby’s, London, 12 December 1984, lot 21), The Good Samaritan has been identified as Piazzetta’s earliest recorded painting, serving as a unique example of his work as he perfected his talents. The pictures probably date from the period Piazzetta was working in the studio the leading Venetian tenebrist, Antonio Moinari (1655-1704) and allow fascinating insight into not only the master’s early working methods and style but also, more broadly, the means by which painters were trained and learned their craft during the late seventeenth century. Both scenes make use of a detailed life study for the recumbent figures of Abel and the wounded traveller. The pose of the figures was one which could be adopted to long periods of time by the painter’s model and thus permitted a prolonged opportunity for detailed observation, allowing for the complicated scheme of foreshortening and modelling such a composition necessitated to be fully observed and established.
The pair formed part of the illustrious collections of Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg (1661-1747) in Venice. Schulenburg frequently purchased paintings from Piazzetta himself, though it appear that the present work and its pendant were not purchased directly from him, and were more likely bought from an unknown source through Schulenburg’s secretary, Johann Friederich Werner (Binion, 1990, op.cit., p. 96). The relationship between the collector and the painter remained close from between around 1738 and 1745, with Piazzetta assuming a number of projects for Schulenberg as an artist, dealer and connoisseur. Indeed, alongside his contemporary Francesco Simonini, the painter was charged with valuing the Schulenburg collection in advance of the 1741 inventory, to which the numbers on the present picture (‘436’) and its pendant (‘435’) relate. Piazzetta apparently had little regard for his own early works however, and only valued them at 100 ducats, a low figure in comparison the 60 ducats at which he valued a single drawing.
The pair formed part of the illustrious collections of Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg (1661-1747) in Venice. Schulenburg frequently purchased paintings from Piazzetta himself, though it appear that the present work and its pendant were not purchased directly from him, and were more likely bought from an unknown source through Schulenburg’s secretary, Johann Friederich Werner (Binion, 1990, op.cit., p. 96). The relationship between the collector and the painter remained close from between around 1738 and 1745, with Piazzetta assuming a number of projects for Schulenberg as an artist, dealer and connoisseur. Indeed, alongside his contemporary Francesco Simonini, the painter was charged with valuing the Schulenburg collection in advance of the 1741 inventory, to which the numbers on the present picture (‘436’) and its pendant (‘435’) relate. Piazzetta apparently had little regard for his own early works however, and only valued them at 100 ducats, a low figure in comparison the 60 ducats at which he valued a single drawing.