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A man and woman are surrounded by six pudgy children, some with wings, against a deep landscape in this square painting. At the center of the composition, the man, Bacchus, sits astride a wine barrel, which is about half his height. Bacchus has tanned, peachy skin, and is nude except for a claret-purple cloth draped across his groin. He wears a crown of grapevines with gold and purple fruit and palm-sized leaves. A staff topped with grapevines leans across one splayed leg, and he holds a shallow bowl in his left hand, to our right. With his other hand, he lifts a delicate gold circlet lined with tiny, bright stars over the woman, Ariadne. He smiles down at her as she reclines next to the barrel, to our left. Ariadne has ash-white, pale skin with flushed cheeks. She looks away from Bacchus, up and to our left, with large brown eyes and her full lips closed. She leans on one elbow near the barrel so her legs extend to our left. A few stems of wheat are tucked into her blond hair. She is nude except for a gold-colored cloth over her groin and a cameo on a gold band around her upper arm. She holds flowers and more wheat in the crook of her elbow, which rests near a tall urn, and touches a grapevine and bunch of grapes that drape over the urn with the other hand. Two putto, one with wings visible, hover behind her right shoulder, to our left. Another child-like putto drinks wine from a rope-wrapped bottle behind Bacchus’s barrel, to our right. A putto holds a round tray and another stands astride a cheetah, who lies in front of the barrel. This final putto holds up a vine with golden grapes and more grapevines are next to the tray. We are separated from the scene by painted architectural features meant to resemble carved white stone. The cheetah’s backside dips over a step that parallels the bottom edge of the canvas. Imaginary creatures in the lower corners have the bodies of large cats, chests with women’s breasts, long necks, curling ears, and long-snouted dog’s faces. Tall, brown, leaf-like forms rising along each side of the painting are wrapped with gold ribbons. Stone molding curls into the scene from the upper corners like parentheses, and the innermost scrolling ends meet at the top center. One more putto, also with wings, leans against the volute to our left, holding up flowers with both hands. Most of the putti have pale or rosy skin and dark blond hair, except for the one standing over the cheetah, who has brown skin and dark brown hair. Tucked into the scene in the lower left, just past the imaginary creature there, another pale-skinned person with a long nose, pointed chin, and the suggestion of jowls is shown from the waist up, looking toward Ariadne. This person has short dark hair and wears a black garment and a square hat in the shape of a white stone castle. A dark green hill rises behind this person, and a satyr, a man with goat’s legs and horns, walks alongside a donkey on which another pale-skinned child rides. There are white buildings with brown roofs in the distance in front of rocky, powder-blue mountains along the horizon. Puffy white clouds tower against the ice-blue sky above.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Bacchus and Ariadne, c. 1743/1745

West Building, Main Floor - Lobby B

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 214 × 232.4 cm (84 1/4 × 91 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Timken Collection

Accession Number

1960.6.36

Artists / Makers

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (artist) Venetian, 1696 - 1770

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Possibly painted for a palace in Venice.[1] Probably Francesco Artaria [1744-1808], Como and Venice; from 1798 Villa Giròla, near Blevio; by descent to Domenico Artaria, inventoried in the Villa Giróla c. 1829;[2] by descent to August Artaria [d. 1893], who upon the sale of the villa in 1870 took it to Vienna, where it remained in the warehouse of the family firm, Artaria & Co., until rediscovered in 1900;[3] sold 1911 via an unknown dealer in Berlin to (Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris);[4] purchased 1927 by (Galerie Van Dieman, Berlin-Amsterdam-New York); sold 1927 or 1928 to a private collector, New York,[5] probably identical with the following. William Robert Timken [1866-1949] and Lillian Guyer Timken [1881-1959], Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and following Mr. Timken's death, New York City;[6] bequest 1960 to NGA.

[1] Based on a now lost letter written by Tiepolo to an unknown addressee from Madrid on 7 August 1764, most scholars have maintained that the original location of the painting (along with two others that were part of the same commission) may well have been the staircase of a Venetian palace.

[2] Heinrich Modern, "Les peintures de Tiepolo à la Villa Girola", Gazette des Beaux Arts 3d ser., vol. 27 (1902): 477; Hans Posse, "Der Triumph der Amphitrite von Giovanni Battista Tiepolo", Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst61 (1927-1928): 370.

[3] Posse 1927-1928: 370, 372.

[4] Posse 1927-1928: 372.

[5] Posse 1927-1928: 372 is the most complete source for this part of the provenance. The prospectus from Van Diemen is preserved in NGA curatorial files.

[6] According to notices in The New York Times, 25 October 1959: 70, and 27 October 1959: 39, Mrs. Timken had begun assembling, and lending, her considerable collection of paintings in the 1920s.

Associated Names

Artaria, August
Artaria, Dominic
Artaria, Francesco
Galerie van Diemen & Co.
Sedelmeyer, Charles
Timken, Lillian S., Mrs.
Timken, William R.

Exhibition History

1967: Loan for display with permanent collection, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, 1967-1971.

Technical Summary

The support is a fairly coarse plain-weave fabric. The ground is yellowish red in color. The paint was applied fairly broadly and thickly with some areas over others, although there is no extensive, considered layering structure. The figural elements were drawn in with loose and expressive brushwork. X-radiographs reveal many parts drawn directly on the canvas with fluid strokes. Other areas - the mountains and sky, for example - were painted with numerous short, brushy strokes that produce areas of texture rather than linear outlines. Some areas show a lack of finish or incorrect drawing, such as the foot of the putto at upper left and the legs of the putto at lower right next to Bacchus. X-radiographs reveal that the original composition included a ledge along the bottom edge of the canvas with griffins gripping balls at either end. A column entwined with acanthus leaves and an entablature closed the right side of the composition, and probably also the left. These elements were painted out before the crouching figure of Rhea at lower left was added, apparently at a later date; there are also remnants of a darker layer over this figure.

Extensive damage, including numerous complex tears and holes, is visible in x-radiographs. The inpainting and areas of overpaint are often crude and have discolored. The varnish is extremely discolored. The painting was relined and the discolored varnish layers thinned during treatment in 1960, probably by Francis Sullivan.

Bibliography

1902: Modern, Heinrich. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Eine Studie. Vienna, 1902: 6-16, pl. 2.

1902: Modern, Heinrich. "Les peintures de Tiepolo à la Villa Girola." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 3rd. ser., vol. 27 (1902): 477-488, repro. 485; 3rd. ser., vol. 28 (1902): 239-241.

1906: Sticotti, Piero. "Review of Giulio Caprin, Trieste." Archeografo Triestino, 3rd. ser., vol. 3.1 (1906): 193, as not by Tiepolo.

1909: Molmenti, Pompeo. G. B. Tiepolo. La sua vita e le sue opere. Milan, 1909: 277-278, repro. 280, as not by Tiepolo.

1910: Sack, Eduard. Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo. Ihr Leben und Ihre Werke. Hamburg, 1910: 203, no. 409, fig. 202.

1911: Molmenti, Pompeo. G. B. Tiepolo. Paris, 1911: 212-214, pl. 225.

1913: Illustrated Catalogue of the Twelfth Series of 100 Paintings by Old Masters of the Dtuch, Flemish, Italian and English Schools, being a Portion of the Sedelmeyer Gallery. Paris, 1913: 86, no. 56, repro.

1920: Mauclaire, Camille. Princes de l'esprit. Paris, 1920: 254-256.

1927: Posse, Hans. "Der Triumph der Amphitrite von Giovanni Battista Tiepolo." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 61 (1927-1928): 370-372, repro. 373.

1931: Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931. Translated as Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 3:pl. 587.

1938: Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by the Two Tiepolos, Giambattista and Giandomenico. Exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago, 1938: 39.

1943: Morassi, Antonio. Tiepolo. Bergamo, 1943: 22, fig. 53.

1955: Morassi, Antonio. G. B. Tiepolo. His Life and Work. London, 1955: 145.

1962: Morassi, Antonio. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo. London, 1962: 30, fig. 260.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 127.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 114, repro.

1968: Pallucchini, Anna. L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 1968: 106, no. 137, repro.

1970: Cailleux, Jean. "Tiepolo and Boucher." In Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi sul Tiepolo. Milan, 1970: 88.

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

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 340, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:454-456; 2:pl. 326.

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

1985: Pignatti, Terisio. Five Centuries of Italian Painting from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation. Houston, 1985: 190.

1992: Bailey, Colin B. "'The Greatest Work of the Painter Shall Be History': History Painting in the Blaffer Collection." In Masterpieces of Baroque Painting from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1992: 96.

1993: Brown, Beverly Louise. Giambattista Tiepolo: Master of the Oil Sketch. Exh. cat. Kimbell Art Museum, Ft. Worth. Milan and New York, 1993: 203-205, under no. 21.

1993: Gemin, Massimo, and Filippo Pedrocco. Giambattista Tiepolo. Venice, 1993: 101, 338, no. 244, 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: 301-308, repro. 303.

2002: Pedrocco, Filippo. Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 2002: no. 146/3, repro.

2018: Ferrier, Lorraine. "Discovering Tiepolo's 'Bacchus and Ariadne' Anew: Conservation effort reveals hidden elements in Venetian master's painting." The Epoch Times (12 June 2018 (updated 8 October 2018).