Family of Darius before Alexander the Great

Diziani was a distinguished follower of Sebastiano Ricci who took the master’s style toward a more angular design, compact form, and subdued palette. Always active for his native Belluno and throughout the northern Veneto, he became the leading painter in Venice itself in the 1750s, after the demise of the school’s great first generation and Tiepolo’s work abroad. Diziani was a fecund draftsman in a style also derived form Ricci, but with a more filigreed line and concentrated use of wash to define form. This is an impressive example of his mature style, rendering a subject he treated on numerous occasions in painting and drawing, but not directly related to any.