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Provenance

Possibly Edward Cheney [1803-1884], London, after 1860 Badger Hall, Shropshire;[1] possibly by inheritance to his brother-in-law, Colonel Alfred Capel-Cure [1826-1896]; by inheritance to his nephew, Francis Capel-Cure [1854-1933], Badger Hall, Shropshire.[2] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence);[3] purchased 1932 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1939 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1993
Giambattista Tiepolo: Master of the Oil Sketch, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1993, no. 53, repro., as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1993
Loan for display with permanent collection, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1993-1994.

Technical Summary

The support is a relatively coarse plain-weave fabric prepared with a red ground. The paint was applied rapidly in short fluid strokes with low impasto in the principal color areas of the sky and foreground. The linear description of the figures is fluid and calligraphic in nature. The textured brushwork ends at a boundary approximately 0.7 cm above the bottom edge of the painting. Air-path x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy suggests a palette of Prussian blue, white and red leads, iron oxide, Naples yellow, vermilion, and possibly ultramarine.[1]

Because a lead-based adhesive was used to adhere the present lining fabric, the x-radiographs cannot be used to determine whether the tacking margins have been removed, the support has been cut down, or the original dimensions of the work. Abrasion is present in the thinly painted sky, and there are scattered losses around the edges. The varnish is clear. The painting was relined about 1932. Discolored varnish was removed and the painting conserved in 1932 and again in 1988.

[1] Suzanne Quillen Lomax, analysis report of 1988, NGA curatorial files.

Bibliography

1941
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 192, no. 211, as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 243, repro. 194, as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1946
Longhi, Roberto. Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneziana. Florence, 1946: 70, fig. 165.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 127, as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1967
Morassi, Antonio. "Antonio Guardi." In Sensibilità e razionalità del '700. Corso internazionale di alta cultura, 7, Venice 1965. Edited by Vittore Branca. Florence, 1967: 67.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 113, repro., as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1968
Pallucchini, Anna. L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 1968: 133, no. 288, repro.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 197.
1973
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 148, fig. 288.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 336, repro., as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:442-443; 2:pl. 320, as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1984
Knab, Eckhart. "Appunti su alcuni disegni veneziani dell'Albertina." In Interpretazioni veneziani. Studi di storia dell'arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro. Edited by David Rosand. Venice, 1984: 418.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 388, repro., as The Apotheosis of a Poet.
1993
Brown, Beverly Louise. Giambattista Tiepolo: Master of the Oil Sketch. Exh. cat. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Milan and New York, 1993: 296-298, no. 53, color repro.
1993
Gemin, Massimo, and Filippo Pedrocco. Giambattista Tiepolo. Venice, 1993: 465, no. 482, repro.
1993
Longyear, Teresa. "Giambattista Tiepolo: The Energetic and Fluent Brush." In Beverly Louise Brown, Giambattista Tiepolo: Master of the Oil Sketch. Exh. cat. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Milan and New York, 1993: 69, 74.
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: 260-264, color repro. 263.
2002
Pedrocco, Filippo. Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 2002: no. 253, repro.

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