Bust portrait in woven silk of Alvise Contarini the younger, Procurator of St Mark's, after Ludovico Gallina, woven by Joseph Gastaldi, Italy, 1777

Portrait in woven silk of Alvise Contarini the younger, Procurator of St Mark's. He is facing half left, and wears a wig and stole of his office.

Two bust portraits of Alvise Contarini the younger, Procurator of St Mark's, one an oil painting and the other a woven replica of the first, exist. The oil painting bears an inscription indicating that it was painted in Venice by Ludovico Gallina of Brescia, in 1776. Gallina, born in Brescia in 1752, was active in Venice as a painter of religious pictures and portraits from 1775 until his death in 1787. The second portrait is woven in silk, inscriptions indicating that the weaving cartoon was drawn by Antonio Pirani, that the weaving was undertaken by Giuseppe Gastaldi, and that the work was paid for and presented by P. A. Zambruni. Though at present nothing more is known of these persons, they are likely to prove significant figures in the history of Venetian silk-weaving. The woven portrait is a tour de force of the silk-weaver's art, and the only comparable examples are some portraits woven in Lyon about the same period. No other silk portrait is known to have been preserved together with the original painting. It was evidently intended that the weaving should be admired in detail, since the back of the frame of the woven portrait is fitted with hinged doors to the back of the fabric. The handsome inlaid frames of the two portraits were made as a matched pair, and the silk portrait retains the original glazing.

The design was drafted by Antonius Pirani, and Joseph Gastaldi was the weaver in Venice.

T.79-1968