Head of Boy Wearing Hat in Profile n.d.

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta made this drawing, "Head of Boy Wearing Hat in Profile," with chalk on gray paper in 18th-century Venice. Piazzetta’s portrait is of a boy wearing what appears to be a turban. It is likely the boy was a studio assistant, and the headwear was a prop meant to evoke the "Orient" for Venetian audiences. Venice was a major port of trade that connected Europe to Ottoman Turkey and North Africa. Orientalizing depictions like these were fashionable, speaking to Venice’s cultural position as a mediator between Europe and other cultures. There are plenty of orientalist depictions like this one. Further archival research may reveal something about the sitter, and what the artwork meant for Piazzetta’s Venetian contemporaries. The meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context.