The Virgin with Child and Saint Anthony of Padua

This work has been identified as the small altarpiece that the Venetian artist realised around 1740 for the local church of his neighbourhood: San Giacomo dell'Orio. Pittoni was a pupil of Antonio Balestra, who showed an interest for Tiepolo and Sebastiano Ricci's bright style of painting. His art, marked by the confident use of bright colours (extremely peculiar is the shining blue of this panel) and the capacity of rendering delicated forms as if they were shaped by light, is one of the protagonists of the European Rococo period.