Antonio de Pian

1784 Venice – 1851 Vienna

The architectural and ornamental painter and lithographer, Antonio de Pian, received his artistic training in Venice and Vienna, and his early work shows the influence of Canaletto’s architectural capriccios. In 1821 he was appointed court theatrical painter in the Austrian capital. His printmaking oeuvre, numbering fifteen lithographs in all, arose mainly in the years 1820–21; it betrays de Pian’s training as a stage designer and his marked feeling for dramatic and effective set-pieces. Entirely in keeping with the prevailing taste of his period, the stylistic principle of the “picturesque” plays a pre-eminent role in de Pian’s iconography and illustrates the Romantic yearning for past epochs.