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Lot Essay
Novelli was a contemporary of Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo and enjoyed a long and successful career as a decorative painter and book illustrator. He executed ambitious large-scale decorative projects for the nobility and the Church in Venice and elsewhere in Italy. Novelli was an extremely prolific draftsman and was praised for his fanciful works on paper.
In this colorful composition Zephyrus, personification of the west wind, enters the scene from the left to awaken a sleeping Venus surrounded by putti. The theme of the scene is probably the awakening of Spring. The same technique, a calligraphic style that combines fine lines in black ink with colorful watercolor, appears in other works such as the large sheet with the ceiling design of Faith overcoming Heresy in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. 1963.761; see The Glory of Venice. Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhib. cat. London, Royal Academy, Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1994-1995, no. 250, ill.) and The Marriage Contract at Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice (inv. Cl. III, n. 8847; see Una passione discreta. La collezione Paolo Galli, exhib. cat., Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico, 2024-2025, no. VI.45, ill.).
In this colorful composition Zephyrus, personification of the west wind, enters the scene from the left to awaken a sleeping Venus surrounded by putti. The theme of the scene is probably the awakening of Spring. The same technique, a calligraphic style that combines fine lines in black ink with colorful watercolor, appears in other works such as the large sheet with the ceiling design of Faith overcoming Heresy in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. 1963.761; see The Glory of Venice. Art in the Eighteenth Century, exhib. cat. London, Royal Academy, Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1994-1995, no. 250, ill.) and The Marriage Contract at Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice (inv. Cl. III, n. 8847; see Una passione discreta. La collezione Paolo Galli, exhib. cat., Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico, 2024-2025, no. VI.45, ill.).