Probably Il Maggiotto, 18th century

Venetian school of the eighteenth century. Probably "IL MAGGIOTTO" (Venice, 1712/13 - 1794).
"Lesson of anatomy".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 62 x 74 cm; 79 x 91 cm (with frame).
We are in front of what could be a previous sketch or a version made by Maggiotto himself for the painting "Drawing Lesson", another work of the Venetian painter himself, nowadays kept in the Museo Civico Luigi Bailo (Treviso, Veneto). The painting preserved in the Treviso museum was engraved by the engraver Antonio Capellan (Venice, 1740 - Rome, 1793), a fact that indicates that the painting was already known at the time. This leads us to think of another possibility: that this painting we present here is a version by another artist, namely Giulia Lama (Venice, ca. 1685-90 - 1743), a disciple, like Domenico Fedeli, of the Escuola Nova de Venezia and the painter Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (Venice, 1683 - 1754). Although both artists have a particular technique, they are coincident in style, something that has led to confusion in some of the attributions of their paintings. However, if we keep in mind Capellan's engraving and the version in the Treviso museum, this could be considered the work of Domenico Fedeli "Il Maggiotto".
Domenico Fedeli attended Giovanni Battista Piazzetta's studio when he was only ten years old; his training with the master is fundamental to understand his painting. In 1750 he joined a group of Venetian painters from Friuli and a year later, he became a member of the Collegio dei Pittori where he performed various administrative tasks. In 1756, he was appointed a member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Venice, alongside great names in the history of art such as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who was the president of the Academy at the time. "Il Maggiotto" devoted his entire life to painting, although he also carried out several public restorations, inspections and artistic reports. All this in Venice, a city from which, according to chroniclers, he never left and where he died in 1794.
Anatomy lessons have been a recurring theme in works of art, the most cited work on this subject being "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp", a painting by the Dutchman Rembrandt, executed in 1632.