{
"data": {
"id": 117768,
"accession_number": "1938.388.a",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "A Flying Angel (recto), 1723\u201327. Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682\u20131754). Black chalk heightened with traces of white chalk ; sheet: 56.3 x 42.6 cm (22 3/16 x 16 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1938.388.a",
"current_location": null,
"title": "A Flying Angel (recto)",
"creation_date": "1723\u201327",
"creation_date_earliest": 1723,
"creation_date_latest": 1727,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Italy, Venice"
],
"technique": "black chalk heightened with traces of white chalk ",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "blue laid paper (discolored)",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - Italian",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 56.3 x 42.6 cm (22 3/16 x 16 3/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.563,
"height_inch": 22,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.1875,
"width": 0.426,
"width_inch": 16,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 312341,
"title": "The Silver Jubilee Exhibition",
"description": "The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).",
"opening_date": "1941-06-23T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 356657,
"title": "Life in Eighteenth Century Venice",
"description": "Life in Eighteenth Century Venice. Fogg Art Museum/Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (organizer) (April 20-June 15, 1948).",
"opening_date": "1948-04-20T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 361625,
"title": "Master Drawings of the Eighteenth Century in France and Italy",
"description": "Master Drawings of the Eighteenth Century in France and Italy. Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (organizer) (January 1-31, 1951).",
"opening_date": "1951-01-01T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 301184,
"title": "Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition",
"description": "Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959).",
"opening_date": "1958-03-03T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 301678,
"title": "Italian and French Drawings",
"description": "Italian and French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 1959-February 2, 1960).",
"opening_date": "1959-10-13T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 350931,
"title": "Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands",
"description": "Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965).",
"opening_date": "1965-01-01T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 304414,
"title": "Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism",
"description": "Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 19-March 23, 1980).",
"opening_date": "1980-02-19T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 304545,
"title": "18th Century Master Drawings",
"description": "18th Century Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 6-November 22, 1981).",
"opening_date": "1981-10-06T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 309655,
"title": "National Schools of Style",
"description": "National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983).",
"opening_date": "1983-06-14T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 356669,
"title": "Giovanni Battista Piazzetta: A Tercentenary Exhibition",
"description": "Giovanni Battista Piazzetta: A Tercentenary Exhibition. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (November 20, 1983-February 26, 1984).",
"opening_date": "1983-11-20T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310010,
"title": "Italian Drawings from the Permanent Collection",
"description": "Italian Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 16, 1986-March 1, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1986-12-16T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 356672,
"title": "The Glory of Venice: Art in the 18th Century",
"description": "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).",
"opening_date": "1994-09-15T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 192019,
"title": "Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"description": "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).",
"opening_date": "2000-08-27T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Italico Brass [1870-1943], Venice, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Nov. 1938.)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "?-1938",
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1938-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The Venetian blue paper (carta azzurra) of this sheet was the preferred medium for preparatory drawings among artists in Venice at the time this drawing was made.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This drawing was completed in preparation for the most prestigious religious commission of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta\u2019s career, the ceiling painting of the Glory of St. Dominic for the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice. Both the finished painting, which depicts St. Dominic\u2019s arrival in heaven amid a thundery vortex, and Piazzetta\u2019s study for the angel, who carries St. Dominic on a cloud, depart from Venetian tradition. To execute this airborne subject, he likely drew from wax or clay models suspended in midair in order to study the illusionistic di sotto in su (from below to above) perspective and the play of light found on the angel\u2019s shadowed form. He worked out the angel\u2019s twisting pose, imbuing it with a lively sense of movement, and accentuated the drapery\u2019s folds with heavy lines as though considering their visibility from afar. There are only slight changes in the angel\u2019s pose between this drawing and the completed painting. As few of Piazzetta\u2019s preparatory studies for paintings exist, Cleveland\u2019s sheet offers rare insight to the artist\u2019s working methods.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80012478"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1938.388.a-a-flying-angel-recto"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "\u201cCleveland: A Museum\u2019s New Acquisitions.\u201d The Art News 38, no. 40 (1940).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 13",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Millikan, William M. \u201cTwo Drawings by Piazzetta.\u201d Burlington Magazine 76, no. 444 (1940).",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 88-89, pl. C",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Francis, Henry S. \"Two Drawings by Piazzetta.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 27, no. 7 (1940): 108-109.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 109",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Fogg Museum of Art. Venice in the Eighteenth Century (May 7- June 10, 1948). Cambridge: Harvard University, 1948.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: no. 28",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "\u201cExhibition of Master Drawings of the Eighteenth Century in France and Italy.\u201d Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 8, no. 2 (1951).",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 54, no. 12.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Johnson, Mark M. Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 56; Reproduced: p. 54, fig. 63",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Jones, Leslie. \u201cThe Paintings of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta.\u201d Doctoral diss., New York University, 1981.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 14, fig. 35",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Pallucchini, Rodolfo and Adriano Mariuz. L\u2019opera completa del Piazzetta. Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1982.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 84 no. 37a, p. 85",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Knox, George. Piazzetta: A Tercentenary Exhibition of Drawings, Prints, and Books. 1983.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 68, cat. no. 15; Reproduced: p. 69",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Puglisi, Catherine R. \u201cPiazzetta\u2019s Glory of Saint Dominic.\u201d Arte Veneta: Rivista di Storia dell\u2019Arte 41 (1987).",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 210, p. 15 n. 5",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Martineau, Jane, and Andrew Robison. The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1994.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 166, 480, no. 87.",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Scir\u00e9, Giovanna Nepi, et al. Splendori del Settecento Veneziano. Milan: Electa, 1995.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 199, no. 72",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Aikema, Bernard. Tiepolo and His Circle: Drawings in American Collections. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Art Museums, 1996.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 88; Reproduced: p. 91, fig. 3",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: P. 4, 60-61, 86; Reproduced: P. 61, cat. no. 20",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1938.388.a",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_web.jpg",
"width": "689",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "234507",
"filename": "1938.388.a_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_print.jpg",
"width": "2603",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "3962538",
"filename": "1938.388.a_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_full.tif",
"width": "9523",
"height": "12439",
"filesize": "355400034",
"filename": "1938.388.a_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_alt0_web.jpg",
"width": "689",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "287272"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_alt0_print.jpg",
"width": "2603",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "4759243"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_alt0_full.tif",
"width": "9523",
"height": "12439",
"filesize": "355400914"
},
"date_created": "2025-01-22T14:46:42",
"annotation": ""
},
{
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_alt1_web.jpg",
"width": "680",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "451373"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_alt1_print.jpg",
"width": "1536",
"height": "2016",
"filesize": "2541051"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1938.388.a/1938.388.a_alt1_full.tif",
"width": "1536",
"height": "2016",
"filesize": "9293140"
},
"annotation": ""
}
],
"creditline": "Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 117768,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1198,
"description": "Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Italian, 1682\u20131754)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1682",
"death_year": "1754",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1938-11-30T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1723,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1723\u201327",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "part",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": "1938.388",
"is_nazi_era_provenance": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Angel"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:06:01.702000"
}
}