Guilty Punchinello

‘I am Prince of everything, Lord of land and main. Except for my public whose faithful servant I remain.’ These are traditionally the final words spoken by Punchinello, one of the stock characters in the Commedia dell’arte. They highlight his essential duality; in different scenes he flits between rich and poor, cunning genius and country bumpkin, sarcastic and sincere. He is a man often lacking in dignity, but who spares those around him from their own embarrassment. His customary appearance: the humpback, crooked nose, gangly legs, the potbelly, and the rosy cheeks, captured so brilliantly here in Giambattista Tiepolo’s swift, almost calligraphic brushstrokes, is inherited from two figures of Ancient Roman Atellan Farce, Maccus and Bucco, respectively a popular clown and a gluttonous fool. All this to say that it is hardly surprising that such a mercurial figure should have inspired arguably the greatest Venetian painter of the eighteenth century.

One of only two known paintings to depict Punchinello executed by Tiepolo, this whimsical composition is reappearing on the art market for the first time in almost a century. As a subject, Punchinello has, over time, come to be more closely associated with Giambattista’s son, Gian Domenico Tiepolo, to whom this work was attributed at the time of its last appearance on the art market in 1934. This is thanks for the most part to two exceptionally famous bodies of work within the oeuvre of the younger Tiepolo: the boisterous frescoes, begun in 1759, that he painted on the walls of the family villa at Zianigo (now in the Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice), where the distinctive characters can be seen cavorting happily through town and country, and his series of 104 drawings, the Divertimento per li regazzi (Entertainment for children), executed at the end of his career (circa 1797-1804), which depict the unfolding life of Punchinello.

Without wishing to detract from Gian Domenico’s achievements, Punchinello is, however, another trope that he inherited from his father. As George Knox explains in his seminal article on the Punchinello works of Giambattista, the artist first began to explore the subject in the 1720s and returned to it sporadically until the end of his life (op. cit.). The group of works connected with the subject is made up of some twenty-two finished drawings, a few fragmentary sketches, a couple of etchings and two major paintings: the present work and its pendant Punchinello cooking, currently in the collection at Leeds Castle (fig. 1).

Two elements set the father’s Punchinello works apart from those of his son. The first, specific to the paintings, is Giambattista’s very liquid handling of his subject matter, with his assured strokes of black outlining the details of the costumes, and the richness of the colouring, which are a far cry from Gian Domenico’s more nervous draftsmanship and slightly zestier colour palette. The second, and more general element, is the choice of activities undertaken by the subjects of the works. Gian Domenico’s compositions in the Divertimento per li Regazzi show Punchinello engaging in a wide range of everyday tasks. However, Giambattista almost exclusively depicts his Punchinello making, eating, over-eating and suffering the consequences of over-eating gnocchi.

Punchinello Cooking and Guilty Punchinello depict the beginning and end of this story arc. In the centre of the Leeds Castle composition, one of the Punchinelli sits stirring a large pot of gnocchi, behind him stands another holding bellows, ready to stoke the fire, beyond them is a figure holding a silver platter and in the distance one brandishes a large serving spoon. Guilty Punchinello jumps forward in time. Cooking pots sit on the embers of the fire, the spoon lies discarded on the floor. However, all has not gone to plan. One mischievous Punchinello has evidently stolen and eaten all the gnocchi. He sits on a tree stump listening to his friends’ remonstrations, a mocking figure dancing before him.

A slightly different interpretation of the scene is suggested in some of the literature; in the place of the tree stump some authors have chosen to see a bucket into which the unfortunate thief is defecating, a fitting comeuppance for his crime, no doubt (see for instance G. Knox, 1984, ibid, p. 443). This is, however, not the case, and is likely a reading that comes from the poor quality of the black and white image available and connections to drawings such as Giambattista’s Groupe de Polichinelle regardant l’un d’eux déféquer, (sold Christie’s, Paris, 20 March 2024, lot 18). Recent infrared reflectography of the painting indicates that the stump was always conceived of as such, though some dark brush marks now hidden within the stump's shadows suggest that Tiepolo may have originally considered a more shameful subject.

The gnocchi trope has its roots in the venerdì gnoccolare, a traditional Veronese festival that occurs on the last Friday of Carnival. This dates back to the food shortage of 1531, when the wealthy Tommaso da Vico donated a large sum of money for the poor to buy flour to make gnocchi (and the event is still celebrated with a large parade held each year, led by Papa' de' gnocco – Father Gnocchi). This Veronese connection led Knox to suggest an execution date for Giambattista’s earliest Punchinello drawings of circa 1724-26, when the young artist was working in Verona. In relation to the present painting and its pendant, he proposed an execution date of 1735, possibly earlier (ibid, p. 441). However, others have more plausibly argued for them being much later, suggesting that they were painted circa 1760-1770 (see, for instance, A. Morassi, op. cit., p. 40, G. Piovene and A. Pallucchini, op. cit., p. 133 and S. Loire and J. de Los Llanos, op. cit., p. 232). For Loire and Pallucchini, the wonderfully harmonious colour palette and fluidity of line in the Leeds Castle painting – and, by extension, in the present work – are comparable with works executed at this date in Spain, such as Saint Peter of Alcantara (fig. 2; Madrid, Palacio Real.)

The difference in possible execution dates has led to some speculation as to the early provenance of Punchinello Cooking and Guilty Punchinello. Knox suggests that the pair may have been commissioned by Francesco Scipione Maffei, a Veronese writer and art critic, with whom Tiepolo worked on the illustrations for Verona Illustrata in circa 1730 (G. Knox, 1984, ibid, p. 443). This argument is, however, based on little more than Maffei’s known love of his native city and its folklore. Victoria Sears Goldman makes an argument instead for the Venetian Francesco Algarotti as the original owner of the works. This idea derives from a letter Algarotti wrote to his brother in 1762, in which he talks about having a Punchinello painting restored (V. Sears Goldman, op. cit., p. 523, note 763). Though this has the advantage of being based on a written source, the letter itself refers to the work in question as a ‘quadretto’ or ‘little painting’, and it is quite a stretch to imagine this being used to described either Punchinello canvas.

Though the original commission for Guilty Punchinello must remain, for now at least, an open question, the reappearance in public of such a rare work within Tiepolo’s oeuvre will undoubtedly fan the flames of further research into the history of one of the most mischievous and unusual compositions to be dreamt up by the great Venetian master.