The miracle of the loaves and fishes
(c. 1725)

Giambattista PITTONI

Medium: oil on canvas
Measurements: 120.1 × 178.5 cm
Inscription: inscribed in black paint (in another hand) l.c.: S. RICCI 1725
Accession Number: 2360-4
Department: International Painting
Credit Line: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1951
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Gallery location: 18th Century Decorative Arts & Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work: Giambattista Pittoni was, along with Giambattista Tiepolo, one of the leading painters of Venice in the eighteenth century. Pittoni was noted for his French Rococo manner, his method was very different to Tiepolo’s, relying on the painstaking accumulation of motifs and a frequent reworking of details. The Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes is recorded in all four gospels. Pittoni’s depiction has features unique to the gospel of John (6:3–13): ‘Jesus went into the mountains … a great multitude followed him, He bade them sit down, took five loaves and two fishes and, giving thanks, broke them and the disciples distributed them’.
Subjects (general): Human Figures Religion and Mythology
Subjects (specific): bread feeding fish (meat) Jesus Christ (Christian character) miracles Miracles of Christ (New Testament narrative)
Movements: Rococo
Frame: English, 1951

Frame

Pittoni, The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, c. 1725, Felton Bequest 1951, was acquired in this frame which is stylistically appropriate for the work, a Canaletto frame, but quite possibly of later manufacture than the date of the painting. This is the frame Daryl Lindsay thought “would not look quite right on the Tiepolo”. The acquisition of the Pittoni was on the advice of A.J.L.McDonnell, who would have known this frame at the time of the reframing proposal by himself and Frederick Pollak for the Banquet of Cleopatra. The Banquet frame, made by Pollak, is a large scale variant of this frame.
Framemaker: Unknown - 18th century