Pietro Bianchi (1694-1740) - San Giovanni Battista nel Deserto

Pietro Bianchi (Rome 1694 - 1740) attributed
Saint John the Baptist in the Desert
Oil on canvas
98 x 75 cm

News about Bianchi's life come to us thanks to two eighteenth-century biographies written by Dezallier d’Argenville and Carlo Giuseppe Ratti. Born in Sarzana in Liguria, he moved to Rome at a young age. Here he began his apprenticeship under Giacomo Triga, who soon afterward went to Venice, which is why the young Pietro passed into the workshop of Giovanni Battista Gaulli. In 1709, upon Gaulli's death, he spent a brief period with Giuseppe Ghezzi and finally settled at Benedetto Luti, of whom he became the favored pupil. In 1725, the first important commissions as an independent painter arrived. His works are still housed in many Roman churches and at the Colonna Gallery.