Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Piazzetta did find inspiration in Crespi's art, in which the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio was transformed into an idiom of graceful charm in his pictures of common folk.

There he won recognition as a leading artist despite his limited output and his unassuming nature, but he ultimately was less patronized, both in Venice and especially abroad, than two other eminent stars in Venetian late-Baroque/Rococo, Ricci and Tiepolo.

Ricci and Tiepolo had a luminous palette and facile ease that allowed them to carpet meters of ceiling with frescoes, although with a superficiality and glamor that is absent from Piazzetta's darker and more intimate depictions.

Usually in charcoal or black chalk with white heightening on gray paper, these are filled with the same spirit that animates his paintings, and were purchased by collectors as independent works.

Among the painters in his studio were Domenico Maggiotto, Francesco Dagiu (il Capella), Johann Heinrich Tischbein, Egidio Dall'Oglio, and Antonio Marinetti.