GUARDI, GIOVANNI ANTONIO

also called Giannantonio Guardi born May 1699, Vienna died Jan. 23, 1760, Venice painter of the 18th-century Venetian school. He was trained by his father Domenico Guardi (16781716). After his father's death, Giovanni Antonio worked for a time under the internationally known religious painter of the Venetian school G.B. Pittoni before opening his own studio. Here, he and his two brothers, Francesco and Niccol, specialized in paintings of religious and genre subjects, as well as copies of earlier masters. There is still much dispute about the precise part played by each of the three brothers in these and other works, such as the altarpieces in the parish churches at Belvedere di Aquileia and Cerete Basso (c. 1755). Some scholars have recently accepted Giovanni Antonio as the author of the famous paintings of the story of Tobit on the organ loft of the church of the Angelo Raffaele at Venice (before 1750). If that series is by his hand, he must be counted as one of the most important painters of the Venetian Rococo.