0324 Giuseppe Pesci: New Findings on a Little-Known Eighteenth-Century Painter and Draughtsman

Abstract

The essay presents new material on the little-known 18th century Roman painter Giuseppe Pesci (or Pesce; b. 1710), almost certainly the son of the more famous Girolamo, who was a pupil of Carlo Maratti and Francesco Trevisani. As from the 1750s, Giuseppe worked in Naples and in 1757 painted a Madonna and Child in wax technique for Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, a work that is now in the Sansevero Chapel Museum. His early activity is almost entirely unknown, with the exception of a few paintings destined for patrons in the Marche region and in particular for San Severino Marche. This study reveals the painter's unexpected expertise in anatomical illustration, as evidenced by the commission from the physician Gaetano Petrioli, who used Pesci's drawings in 1748 and 1750 for his publications dedicated to Bartolomeo Eustachio's famous anatomical plates. In addition, attention is drawn to two autograph drawings by Pesci, now in London, which reveal his skill as a copyist of ancient and modern statues.