Lot 2077 Dα

Pietro Belloto, also known as Bellotti, was a scion of the famous Venetian painter family Canal, who through Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto (1697-1768), helped spread the fame of Venetian veduta painting. His nephew Bernardo Bellotto, who worked in a similar manner, also took on the epithet "Canaletto". In a scale of fame of the Venetian veduta painters, he follows his uncle in second place. Pietro Bellotto, his younger brother, is in third place.
Pietro Bellotto was born around 1725 in Venice. After an apprenticeship with his brother Bernardo, who was only three years older, he moved to Toulouse for reasons unknown to us, where he married in 1749, founded a family and opened a painting workshop. His participation in the exhibitions of the Academy of Arts there are documented in the following years until 1790. Travels to other regions or stays in Venice, however, are not documented. Nevertheless, Bellotti's paintings mostly show views of Venice, Florence, Rome, Genoa, but also of Dresden, like these beautifully preserved views of the city on the Elbe.
Pietro Bellotto transferred his brother's aquatint etchings onto canvas. Both views were painted by Bernardo Bellotto in Dresden, commissioned by the Saxon Elector August III between 1748 and 1750, and he also made the corresponding aquatint etchings during the process of creating the paintings. These black and white prints circulated very quickly throughout the entire continent and also came into the hands of his younger brother in the South of France. Pietro Bellotti's paintings are somewhat of a quiet echo of Bernardo's emblematic vedutas.