Diana the Huntress: modelli

First identified in 1976 by Antonio Morassi in an inscription on the photographic mount in the Witt library (where given to Giandomenico Tiepolo), the present pictures are modelli for the artist's frescoes painted in 1727 for the Villa of Antonio Widmann, at Bagnoli di Sopra near Padua. The frescoes, which form two ceiling panels in the loggia, closely follow the modelli. The preparatory works, now badly damaged, provide a clue as to the original state of the frecoes, particularly the second fresco where the lower section showing the putto and deer has been lost altogether. The handling in the present pictures is closely comparable with the treatment of the modello, in a private collection, Rovigo, for the ceiling fresco of Diana and Endymion in the same villa.