Attributed to Giambattista Piazzetta (Pietrarossa 1682-1754 Venice)

In 1742 Marco Pitteri (1703-1767) produced a well-known series of prints of the Holy Family and the Apostles after drawings by Giambattista Piazzetta. The present oil sketch must without doubt have served as the example for the print by Pitteri. As both are in the same direction, it is likely that there were one or more intermediate drawings.
The head of Saint Peter resembles closely that of a male figure in the lower centre in Piazzetta's painting 'The Assumption of the Virgin' of 1735, now in the Louvre, Paris.