Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000307A Young Woman Buying a Pink from a Young Man
by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Also known as: Il fiorellin d'Amore (Little flower of love)
About the Artwork
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta was celebrated for his finished drawings of saints, portraits, and teste di carattere (character heads). Cleveland’s sheet belongs to the latter genre, which describes portraits embellished with props to suggest a character type or types. Here, Piazzetta united three independent studies of individuals into a single scene, in which a young woman appears to purchase a pink—a type of flower related to the carnation—from a boy with a second young woman looking on.The image bristles with tantalizing narrative potential, but it is left to the viewer to interpret the scene as they wish. Drawings of this size and quality of finish were displayed on walls like paintings, rather than stored in portfolios, with the unfortunate consequence that the Venetian blue paper often faded to a grayish-tan as here. However, the virtuosity of Piazzetta’s technique endures on this sheet. His method of modeling—wetting and rubbing his black crayon rather than hatching—produces the density of tone and velvety shadow. Textural details are supplied by white chalk, evoking the silky weave of the boy’s shirt and the hard substance of the figures’ fingernails. Piazzetta's drawings were in high demand among affluent foreign visitors and helped to supplement his income.
Provenance
?-1938: (Italico Brass [1870-1943], Venice, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Nov. 1938.) 1938-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
Exhibition history
The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941). Italian Drawings, 1330-1780. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA (organizer) (December 1-20, 1941). Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 17-August 24, 1942). Life in Eighteenth Century Venice. Fogg Art Museum/Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (organizer) (April 20-June 15, 1948). Venice 1700-1800: An Exhibition of the Venetian Eighteenth Century. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields; The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (organizer) (September 30-November 2, 1952). Mozart and the Age of Reason. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (January 15-February 29, 1956). Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959). Italian and French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 1959-February 2, 1960). Aspects of Drawing. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 10-April 2, 1961). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963). Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965). Prints and Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 6-September 9, 1965). Italian Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 30-March 26, 1968). 18th Century Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 6-November 22, 1981). Giovanni Battista Piazzetta: A Tercentenary Exhibition. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (November 20, 1983-February 26, 1984). Italian Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 16, 1986-March 1, 1987). The Glory of Venice: Art in the 18th Century. Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (September 15-December 14, 1994); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (January 29-April 23, 1995). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682–1754)
- Date
- c. 1740
- Medium
- black crayon (wetted and rubbed) heightened with white chalk on faded blue paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 42.7 x 54.9 cm (16 13/16 x 21 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Accession no.
- 1938.387
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Open-access museum record · AT-00000307
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