34 GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAZZETTA Italian, 1683­1754 A Boy Holding a Pear (Giacomo Piazzetta?) Black and white chalk on blue­gray paper (faded light brown), made up of two pieces joined together 39.2 x 30.9 cm (15 7/16 x 12 3/16 in.) Cat. II, no. 33; 86.GB.677 The drawing belongs to a series known as Teste di carattere (Character heads), which together constitute Piazzetta's greatest contribution as a draftsman. The youth, who is finely dressed in a brocaded vest, full­sleeved shirt, and feathered cap, holds up a pear and gazes meaningfully at the spectator. This same boy, recognizable from his good­ natured demeanor, who appears in a number of Piazzetta's other works, has been identified as the artist's son Giacomo. The drawing may be compared in theme as well as in the gesture of the sitter's right hand to a sheet in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, showing a woman proffering up a pear, and to a painting in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, with the same boy, also with a pear but represented in profile. It has been suggested in connection with the New York drawing that the woman may have been intended to personify the Sense of Taste. Of the same scale as this example, or sometimes larger, the drawings in the series of Teste are usually done in black chalk or charcoal, heightened with white chalk, on blue­ gray or buff­colored paper. Piazzetta handled these materials with great flair, conveying a haunting sense of lifelikeness in the figures. The chalk was applied with varying degrees of pressure, the lightly shaded areas of midtone suggesting diffused light and the more heavily drawn passages rich, velvety shadows or darks. The forms were then further enlivened by white chalk highlights—in this example in the lace collar and linen sleeves, in the pear, and on the tip of the boy's nose. ITALIAN SCHOOL 45