The Apotheosis of Francesco Barbaro

Details

Circle of Giambattista Tiepolo (Venice 1696-1770 Madrid)
The Apotheosis of Francesco Barbaro
oil on canvas, a modello
20¼ x 27¼ in. (51.4 x 69.2 cm.)

Provenance

Eugen Schweitzer, Berlin; Cassirer, 6 June 1918, lot 29.
Dr. Walter von Pannwitz, Hartekamp, The Netherlands.
with M. Knoedler & Co., New York, by 1955.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 28 November 1962, lot 25, as 'Giovanni Battista Tiepolo'.

Literature

E. Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo Giambattista und Domenico: ihr leben und ihre werke, Hamburg, 1910, p. 185.
G. Gronau, Sammlung Eugen Schweitzer, 1918.
M.J. Friedlander et al., Die Kunstsammlung von Pannwitz herausgegeben von Max J. Friedlander und Otto van Falke, I, Munich, 1926, p. 15, no. 69.
Winnipeg, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Favorite Italian and Spanish masters of the 17th and 18th centuries: the Baroque era, 1951, the exhibition catalogue, illustrated.

Exhibited

Winnipeg, Winnipeg Art Gallery Association, Favorite Italian and Spanish masters of the 17th and 18th centuries: the Baroque era, 24 October-18 November 1951.
Sarasota, Ringling Museum of Art, The Artful Rococo, 1953, no. 24.

Lot Essay

The present painting is based on a preparatory work by Giambattista Tiepolo (private collection, Paris, oval 45 x 63 cm.), made for a ceiling decoration that was originally installed in the Palazzo Barbaro, Venice, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see A. Morassi, A complete catalogue of the paintings of G.B. Tiepolo, Greenwich, 1962, pp. 33 and 42, fig. 332). Although presumably a copy, this oil sketch differs from the original, most notably to the cloaked figure, who faces forward in this example, not down as in the Paris sketch, and who holds a chalice here. There are also significant differences in the sky and small changes to the group of putti.

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