57 - Giacomo Ceruti, Il Pitocchetto (Milan 1698–1767), workshop of

Giacomo Ceruti, Il Pitocchetto (Milan 1698–1767), workshop of Portrait of a Noblewoman with a Fan Oil on canvas 98.5 x 90 cm This work bears a striking resemblance to the painting published in the monograph by M. Gregori, *Giacomo Ceruti*, entry 231, photo on p. 390 From the scant information available about his early life, it appears that Ceruti trained in both Milan and Brescia, where his family is known to have resided at various times. We find him active in Brescia from the early 1720s, painting mainly scenes of the poor, vagrants, and peasants, which earned him the nickname “Pitocchetto.” Later, beginning in 1735, he was in the Veneto region, where he painted on commission for Marshal Schulenburg in Venice. After spending two years in Padua, where he created, among other works, an altarpiece for the Basilica of Saint Anthony, he returned to the Brescia area, then to Milan, and finally to Piacenza. In 1747, he returned to his native Milan, where he established himself as a portraitist for the city’s most prominent families. Giacomo Ceruti, Il Pitocchetto (Milan 1698–1767), workshop of Portrait of a Noblewoman with a Fan Oil on canvas 98.5 x 90 cm This work bears a striking resemblance to the painting published in the monograph by M. Gregori, *Giacomo Ceruti*, entry 231, photograph on p. 390