Giovanni Battista Casanova

Giovanni Battista Casanova ( born November 2, 1730 in Venice, † December 8, 1795 in Dresden) was an Italian painter and draftsman, who lived mainly in Dresden and Rome and worked.

Family

Giovanni Battista was the third of six children of Gaetano Casanova (1697-1733) and Giovanna, born Farussi (1708-1776), who lived in Venice. His parents were actors. His older brother Giacomo Casanova was the famous adventurer and writer. The painter also very successful brother Francesco Casanova was court painter in Vienna.

Giovanni Battista Casanova was married to Teresa Roland (1744-1779), with whom he had several children.

Artistic creation

Casanova was a student of Louis de Silvestre (1675-1760), Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1683-1754), Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, called Dietricy (1712-1774) and Anton Raphael Mengs ( 1728-1779 ). He studied in Rome, Paris and Dresden. In January 1764 he came back from Rome to Dresden, where he was co-founder, Professor and from 1776 - called together with Johann Eleazar Zeissig Schenau ( 1737-1806 ) - Director of the Dresden Art Academy. His students included Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807), Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein ( Reifenstein ) ( 1719-1793 ) and Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( 1717-1768 ). For Winckelmann Casanova drew to its 1767 published Monumenti antichi Inediti archaeological finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum. After the assessment of Winckelmann G. B. Casanova was "the greatest artist in Rome." He was regarded by his contemporaries as an outstanding draftsman and copyist, mainly the works of Raphael.

Last Resting Place

His final resting place took Casanova in Dresden on the Old Catholic Cemetery in the Friedrichstadt district. The tomb designed by his former pupil Franz Pettrich.