Trained by his uncle Francesco Pittoni, Giambattista Pittoni was influenced by Federico Bencovich, Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta and Giambattista Tiepolo. Unlike his contemporaries, he did not travel through Europe but remained - aside from short journeys - in Venice, where he worked for foreign clients, for example the Irishman Owen McSwiny, Johann Matthias Count von der Schulenburg and Frederick Augustus I, elector of Saxony. Clemens August von Wittelsbach, the elector of Cologne, ordered from him two altarpieces for the palace church in Bad Mergentheim (1734) and for the Augustinian friary in Diessen on the Ammersee (1739). In addition to numerous paintings on mythological and historical subjects, Pittoni painted a number of altarpieces for churches in the Veneto and neighbouring northern Italy. He also left a large number of drawings, mostly figure and composition studies. The majority are now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia and the Fondazione Cini in Venice. By the end of the eighteenth century, Pittoni had already been forgotten, and was only rediscovered and made known again in the first half of the twentieth century.
