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A woman wearing a breastplate and helmet over a toga stands to our left on a platform, gesturing with one arm extended to a group of about a dozen soldiers gathered around her in this horizontal painting. The woman has pale white skin and most of the soldiers have ruddy complexions. The woman stands with her body facing us but she turns her head to our right, looking toward but not at the knot of soldiers clustered there. She leans on her right elbow, on our left, resting on the flat top of a broken column, and she holds a scepter in that hand. Her other arm is raised and her fingers are extended except for the index finger and thumb, which touch to make a circle. Her gold helmet is encrusted with gems and a white plume issues from the top. Her red and gold cloak is fastened around her neck and falls open to reveal her armor and sandal-clad feet. A shield rests on the platform near her feet, and other pieces of armor are scattered on the dirt ground near the platform. A young boy with chestnut-brown curls holds her cloak behind her and to our right. In the lower left corner of the painting, one soldier sits on the edge of the platform, and he twists and looks up at the woman. Several soldiers standing in a group to our right carry shields, banners, and halberds, which are tall, ax-like weapons. The men wear helmets and breastplates, and cloaks in canary yellow, crimson red, and ivory white. The man closest to us stands with his back to us, and he looks over his shoulder at the woman. An animal skin wraps around his shoulders and the head of the animal drapes over his head. More soldiers and tents in the middle distance are painted in almost monochromatic tones of peanut brown and taupe. The sky above is blue with a few white clouds, except for a band of soft yellow along the horizon.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Queen Zenobia Addressing Her Soldiers, 1725/1730

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 32

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 261.4 x 365.8 cm (102 15/16 x 144 in.)

framed: 292.1 x 397 x 8.5 cm (115 x 156 5/16 x 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.42

Artists / Makers

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (artist) Venetian, 1696 - 1770

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Possibly Ca' Zenobio, Venice, by 1732[1] until at least 1817 or 1844.[2] Villa Grimani-Vendramin Calergi, Noventa Padovana until 1905 or 1909.[3] (Count Dino Barozzi, Venice). C. Ledyard Blair [d. 1950], Peapack-Gladstone, New Jersey, by 1909.[4] Maisie Dreicer Whyte de Kerchove [1889-1976, née Shainwald, from 1908-1921 Mrs. Michael Dreicer, from 1923 Mrs. Jardine Bell Whyte, from 1935 Baroness de Kerchove]; sold or consigned 24 February 1948 to (French and Co., New York); sold 7 December 1949 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century, London, 1973, connected the painting and its two pendants (now in Milan) with another large painting in Turin, and recognized the works as an early commission for the Zenobio family completed in 1732, and recorded by Vincenzo da Canal in his biography of Tiepolo's teacher Gregorio Lazzarini. George Knox, "Giambattista Tiepolo: Queen Zenobia and Ca'Zenobio: 'una delle prime sue fatture'", Burlington Magazine 121 (1979) related a fifth painting (now in Madrid) to the original commission.

[2] The last male Zenobio, Alvise, died in 1817, leaving the palace to his sister Alba, who died in 1837. Renovations to the palace began in 1844, at which time a number of art works were apparently sold: Gianjacopo Fontana, Venezia Monumentale: I Palazzi, Venice, 1845-1863: 299 (reprint, editec by Lino Moretti, Venice, 1967).

[3] According to an unsigned statement, probably by Count Barozzi (NGA curatorial files). William Suida, The Samuel H. Kress Collection, Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-1953, Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 46/227, Philadelphia, 1950, gave the date 1905; Giulio Lorenzetti, "The note Tiepolesche", Rivista di Venezia 14 (1935): 388, gave the date as 1909. On the Villa Grimani-Vendramin Calergi see Mercedes Precerutti Garberi, Affreschi settecenteschi delle ville venete, Milan, 1968: 61-63. The villa passed from the Grimani to the Vendramin Calergi in 1740. Upon her death in 1894, the last member of this family, the widowed Countess Valmarana, left the villa and its contents to the Istituto delle Sordomute, which she founded, run by the Suore Canossiane. The archive of the villa was destroyed shortly after 1900, according to Bruno Brunelli and Adolfo Callegari, Ville del Brenta e degli Euganei, Milan, 1931: 135-137. Giulio Lorenzetti, "Tre note Tiepolesche", Rivista di Venezia 14 (1935): 388-389, concluded that the painting had been brought from another site.

[4] Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century, London, 1973: 144, and Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:451, placed Blair's purchase in 1909. The painting was cited in this collection by Giulio Lorenzetti, Das Jahrhundert Tiepolos, Vienna, 1942: LIII, and Antonio Morassi, "Settecento inedito", Arte Veneta 6 (1952): 20. The painting does not appear in Blair's posthumous sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 10 June 1950.

[5] French and Co. Stock no. 79690AA. Information provided by Martha Hepworth of the Getty Provenance Index, letter dated 9 June 1988 in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1752.

Associated Names

Barozzi, Dino, Count
Blair, C. Ledyard
Ca'Zenobio
French & Company LLC
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Villa Grimani-Vendramin Calergi
de Kerchove, Maisie Shainwald Dreicer Whyte

Exhibition History

1950: The Samuel H. Kress Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-1953, no. 25 (cat. by William Suida in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 46/277, 1950).

1961: Exhibition of Art Treasures for America from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1961-1962, no. 93A, as A Scene from Roman History.

Technical Summary

The support consists of four lengths of a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric joined with three vertical seams. There are two ground layers: a warm ocher-colored layer over a white layer. The upper ground layer is visible between some contour boundaries and in the helmet in the left foreground. The entire painting was executed simultaneously, although the wooden staffs were apparently added last. The paint was applied in a creamy consistency that retained the fluid brushstrokes without producing high impasto. A wide range of opaque to glazed paints was employed. Thin brown lines were added over the paint to emphasize contours. Small adjustments in contours and overlapping forms appear as pentimenti in normal light and as brushstrokes under the thin surface paint in raking light. No major changes are evident. Infrared reflectography reveals no underdrawing; however, several lines were drawn in a dry medium on a dry underlayer to position the flagpole at the right side.

Cusping is visible on both sides and the bottom, and is presumed to be present along the top edge. There are numerous small tears throughout the upper section, with a horizontal tear of 53 cm and a vertical tear of 77 cm at the right edge. The impasto is slightly moated. The extensive inpainting in the sky has whitened. The varnish is moderately discolored. The painting was relined, discolored varnish was removed, and the painting was restored by Mario Modestini in 1950-1951.

Bibliography

1935: Lorenzetti, Giulio. "Tre note Tiepoloesche." Rivista di Venezia 14 (1935): 385-392, repro.

1942: Lorenzetti, Giulio. Das Jahrhundert Tiepolos. Vienna, 1942: LIII, pl. 38.

1943: Morassi, Antonio. Tiepolo. Bergamo, 1943: 20, pl. 45.

1955: Morassi, Antonio. G. B. Tiepolo. His Life and Work. London, 1955: 16, fig. 19.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 247, repro., as A Scene from Roman History.

1962: Morassi, Antonio. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo. London, 1962: 67.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 318, repro., as A Scene from Roman History.

1965: Panofsky, Erwin. "Classical Reminiscences in Titian's Portraits: Another Note on his 'Allocution of the Marchese del Vasto.'" In Festschrift für Herbert von Einem zum 16. Februar 1965. Ed. by G. von der Osten and G. Kauffmann. Berlin,1965: 198, pl. 40-41

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 127, as A Scene from Roman History.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:338, color repro., as A Scene from Roman History.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 113, repro., as A Scene from Roman History.

1968: Pallucchini, Anna. L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 1968: 100, no. 97B, repro.

1968: Precerutti Garberi, Mercedes. Affreschi settecenteschi delle ville venete. Milan, 1968: 63.

1969: Panofsky, Erwin. Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic. New York, 1969: 77.

1971: Rizzi, Aldo. Mostra del Tiepolo. Dipinti. Exh. cat. Villa Manin di Passariano, Udine. Milan, 1971: 58.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 198.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 143-144, fig. 282.

1974: Shapley, Fern Rusk. "Tiepolo's Zenobia Cycle." In Hortus Imaginum. Essays in Western Art, edited by Robert Engass and Marilyn Stokstad. Lawrence, Kansas, 1974: 192-198, fig. 131.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 338, repro.

1979: Knox, George. "Giambattista Tiepolo: Queen Zenobia and Ca'Zenobia: 'una delle prime sue fatture'." The Burlington Magazine 121 (1979): 413-414, 418, fig. 8.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:450-453, 544-545; 2:pl. 325.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 342, no. 466, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 390, repro.

1985: Knox, George. "Roman and Less Roman Elements in Venetian History Painting, 1650-1750." Revue d'art canadien/Canadian Art Review 12 (1985): 177.

1993: De Grazia, Diane. "Giambattista Tiepolo e la regina Zenobia." Ca' de Sass no. 123 (September 1993): 2-7, repro.

1993: Gemin, Massimo, and Filippo Pedrocco. Giambattista Tiepolo. Venice, 1993: 30-31 (color repro.), 236-237, no. 51, repro.

1996: De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 309-317, color repro. 313.

2002: Pedrocco, Filippo. Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 2002: no. 92/3, repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 243, no. 192, color repro.