CARLO ALBERTO BARATTA (Genoa 1754-1815)

Carlo Alberto Baratta was a versatile artist and prolific draftsman from Genoa. Baratta lived in a transitional period when the taste for the Rococo was being replaced by the new Neoclassical style. His drawings, characterized by an abundant use of black wash and white heightening, were greatly admired for their painterly qualities by collectors already in his own time (M. Newcome, ‘Drawings by Carlo Alberto Baratta’, Studi di Storia dell’Arte, XXIV, 2013, pp. 261-262). The present composition can be compared with Minerva seated on clouds in Florence in the Uffizi (inv. 7247; see M. Newcome-Schleier, Disegni genovesi dal XVI al XVIII, Florence, 1989, no. 114, ill).