Bust of a Man (Saint Matthias?)

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

ca. 1715–20 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

This bearded man with an axe may be identified as Matthias, the last of the apostles, chosen to take the place of Judas after his betrayal of Christ. It probably comes from one of several series of apostles’ heads devised by Piazzetta and widely disseminated when engraved by Marco Pitteri. The French artist Fragonard is known to have admired Pitteri’s engravings after Piazzetta’s apostles when he encountered them in a Venetian printshop in 1774.

Artist

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Date

ca. 1715–20

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Gift of Dianne Modestini and Eugene V. Thaw, 2016