Old man with staff

Piazzetta, Giovanni Battista, after

Mezzotint portrait on paper of an old bearded man leaning on a staff, engraved by Johann Lorenz Haid (1702-1750) for a series of heads [A.15] published by Johann Christian Leopold (1699-1755) in Augsburg in the 1750s. They were based on drawings by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682-1754). Piazzetta financed his career and made his name partly by selling drawings of heads and half-length figures. He is credited with helping to raise the status of drawing as an art form equal to that of painting.