Giacomo Ceruti

Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti (13 October 1698 – 28 August 1767) was an Italian late Baroque painter, active in Northern Italy. He painted a variety of subjects, including portraits, religious and mythological scenes and still lifes. He is best known as a painter of large-scale genre scenes in which beggars, paupers, pilgrims, old people and simple craftsmen are depicted realistically in portrait form or engaged in their daily activities. This subject matter, which he treated with empathy, earned him the nickname Pitocchetto ('little beggar').