Bust of a Boy Looking over His Shoulder

Watermark: Letters, indecipherable, possibly F or L and P. Watermark, beta radiograph. Letters. 247237wm_2017_187_WM_beta.jpg
The Bust of a Boy is one of Piazzetta's famous teste di carattere, drawings made as independent works of art, of a size and level of finish not to be kept in a portfolio but rather to be hung on a wall and enjoyed. They are the earliest type of drawings we know that were regularly framed and glazed and hung like paintings, and some were even prepared that way before being shipped to buyers. The unfortunate result of this practice of display is that the Venetian blue paper is often faded to tan. Nonetheless, these works retain Piazzetta's elegant gracefulness and human sympathy, as seen here in the ease of the raised forefinger that punctuates the twist of the boy's head. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
The boy in this drawing appears in a number of other works by Piazzetta, incuding the "Young Woman Buying a Pink from a Young Man" at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He has been identified as Piazzetta's eldest son, Giacomo, who was born in 1725.