1053 - Pietro Muttoni, gen. Pietro della Vecchia

Pietro Muttoni, gen. Pietro della Vecchia Pietro Muttoni, called Pietro della Vecchia A brawl between the 'bravi' Oil on panel. 29 x 41.5 cm. Provenance Coll. of the painter Italico Brass (1870–1944), Venice. – A private Italian collection. Literature N. Ivanoff, Il grottesco nella pittura veneziana del Seicento, in Emporium, IC (1944), pp. 85; 94, fig. p. 90. – A. Brejon De Lavergnée, Dijon, Musée Magnim: Catalogue des tableaux et dessins Italiens (XV-XVIII siècle), Paris 1980, p. 112, no. 106. – R. Pallucchini: La pittura veneziana del Settecento, Venice/Rome 1981, vol. I, p. 172, 180, vol. II, fig. 500. – B. Aikema: Pietro della Vecchia, a profile, in: Saggi e memorie di Storia dell'arte XIV (1984), pp. 77-100, p. 92, no. 8. – B. Aikema, Pietro della Vecchia and the Heritage of the Renaissance in Venice, Florence 1990, p. 144, no. 182. Pietro della Vecchia was born in Venice, where he spent most of his life. Extremely versatile, he engaged with many different genres: altarpieces, portraits, grotesques and pastiches inspired by the work of leading Italian painters of the sixteenth century. He also worked as an art restorer, and was much sought after as an art expert and valuer. The present panel is an example of his famous representations of soldiers, the so-called 'bravi', with broad feathered hats, of which he executed many versions and variations, and which perfectly convey the Venetian Baroque's taste for eccentric subjects.