Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Venetian, 1696 - 1770

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Italian painter (1696–1770)

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We look up through an opening surrounded by a stone ledge, with clusters of people and clouds swirling into a blue sky up and away from us in this vertical, rectangular painting. From a distance, the scene looks like a complete illusion but up close, the people, clouds, and architecture are sketchily painted. The ledge running around the opening has a gold, oval medallion at each corner. Appearing to be carved from white stone, two bearded men with long hair recline against each medallion, flanking them to each side in front of large shells that curve up over the people and frames them. A few architectural structures extend up into the sky, including a pointed obelisk in the lower left corner, a pair of columns at the upper right, and what seems to be the mast of a ship at the top left. Most of the people have pale skin but some have more tan complexions, and a few, including those wearing feather headdresses near the upper left corner, have brown skin. The people wear windswept robes of pale, butter yellow, robin’s egg blue, rose pink, and ivory. The eye may drawn to a few vignettes, such as the man holding a rearing, chestnut-brown horse on the illusionistic ledge near the lower right, a nun wearing a white robe and holding a cross above him in the clouds, and, farthest away, a crowned person sitting on a throne.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Wealth and Benefits of the Spanish Monarchy under Charles III, 1762, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.39

Wealth and Benefits of the Spanish Monarchy under Charles III

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo · 1762 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.4.39

Bibliography

1809

  • da Canal, Vincenzo. Vita di Gregorio Lazzarini scritta da Vincenzo Da Canal P.V.. (1732). Edited by G. Moschini. Venice, 1809.

1909

  • Molmenti, Pompeo. Tiepolo: la sua vita e le sue opera. Milan, 1909.

1910

  • Sack, Eduard. Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo, Ihr Leben und Ihre Werke. Hamburg, 1910.

1955

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

1962

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

1968

  • Pallucchini, Anna. L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 1968.

1986

  • Levey, Michael. Giambattista Tiepolo, His Life and Art. New Haven and London, 1986.

1989

  • Barcham, William L. The Religious Paintings of Giombattista Tiepolo. Oxford, 1989.

1993

  • Pedrocco, Filippo. Giambattista Tiepolo. Venice, 1993.

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: 259-260.