Adoration of the Magi

  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Government Art Collection
  • About the artist
    Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was born, worked and died in Venice. His oeuvre was comparatively small as he worked slowly. Elected Director of the newly founded Accademia in Venice in 1750, he devoted the last four years of his life to teaching. Piazzetta gained the reputation among his contemporaries as caring little for temporal honours or self interest. He seems to have lived exclusively for his art - so much so that when he died his family petitioned the State for a pension, claiming that his ‘constant studies and his pursuit of glory rather than gain had reduced him to poverty and hastened his death.’ Today, his drawings are well represented in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.
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  • Details
    Title
    Adoration of the Magi
    Date
    c.1725-1745
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    height: 109.00 cm, width: 97.00 cm
    Acquisition
    Presented by Viscountess d'Abernon, November 1953
    Provenance
    Collection of Viscountess d'Abernon; by whom presented to the Ministry of Works for display in the British Embassy, Rome, in November 1953
    GAC number
    2283