Tronie

Jacopo Marieschi was a pupil of Gaspare Diziani and was long confused with the veduta painter Michele Marieschi. His style is characterized by brilliant colouring and a rich, fluid, rapid handling of the brush, revealing a clear debt to the idioms of Sebastiano Ricci and Gianantonio Guardi.

Although critically rediscovered only in relatively recent times, Marieschi enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime, culminating in his election as president of the Accademia in 1776, a position he held until his death (1).

A painting of the same subject, closely related stylistically to the work examined here (Fig. 1), appeared at auction at Dorotheum in 2004 and subsequently at Farsetti in 2005 (2). The attribution of the Dorotheum canvas to Jacopo Marieschi was proposed by Professor Ugo Ruggeri, who was preparing a monograph on the artist that, unfortunately, was never completed.