Giacomo Ceruti

Ceruti, Giacomo 

(nicknamed II Pitocchetto, or the Little Beggar). Years of birth and death unknown. Italian painter of the 18th century.

From 1720 to 1750, Ceruti worked in Brescia and possibly also in Venice. He was one of the most original masters of 18th-century Italian genre painting. His works, executed with a restrained palette, reveal a love for the common people, in particular, sympathy for the misery of the peasantry. One example is The Traveler, one copy of which is housed at the Testori Collection in Novara. Ceruti also painted religious scenes and portraits.

REFERENCES

Libman, M. Ia. “‘Khudozhniki real’nosti’ v Italii XVII–XVIII vv.” In the collection 50 let Gosudarstvennomu muzeiu izobrazitel’nykh iskusstv im. A. S. Pushkina. Moscow, 1962.
Morassi, A “Giacomo Ceruti.” Pantheon, 1967, vol. 25, pp. 348–67.