Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (29 April 1675 – 2 or 5 November 1741) was one of the leading Venetian history painters of the early 18th century.

[1] He travelled widely on commissions which brought him to England, the Southern Netherlands, the Dutch Republic, Germany, Austria and France.

[5] In London he worked at 31 St James's Square for the Duke of Portland, where George Vertue noted in his notebooks "the hall and Staircase and one or two of the great rooms".

He submitted designs for decorating the interior dome of the new St Paul's Cathedral, and is said to have been Christopher Wren's favourite painter.

Pellegrini subsequently travelled through Germany and the Netherlands, collecting Northern paintings as he went[7] and completing works in many European cities.