(Verona 1707–1762 St. Petersburg)
The Finding of Moses,
oil on canvas, 211 x 148 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Descendants of artist, until circa 2000;
From whom acquired by the present owner

Pietro Antonio Rotari first trained in his native Verona with Antonio Balestra; he then moved to Venice in 1725-1727, then Rome in 1728-1731 and Naples in 1731-1734, where he studied with Francesco Trevisani and Francesco Solimena, before returning to Verona to establish his own studio and school. There, he concentrated on the production of historical and religious paintings. Influenced by the Roman and Bolognese tradition of classical painting, he developed his own style inspired by the works of artists as Guido Reni, Domenichino, Maratta and Sassoferrato. His ‘infatuation for the Bolognese classicism’ gained him many commissions in Parma, Modena and Guastalla (see L. Ievolella, Pietro Antonio Rotari in Emilia, in: Verona illustrata, 24.2011, pp. 149-157).

In 1750 Rotari travelled to Vienna, and then to Dresden in the service of Frederick Augustus III. By 1756 he became court painter to the Empress Elisabeth of Russia, daughter of Peter the Great, a position he held until his death. After his death, Catherine the Great bought more than three hundred of the artist’s ‘fancy pictures’ for the cabinet of ‘Muses and Graces’ at the Peterhof Palace, where small and large canvases are arranged in a careful pattern across the walls above and between intricately carved rococo doors and mirrors. The pictures not bought by Catherine, such as the present picture, were returned to Rotari’s family in Verona, where they remained in the possession of his descendants.