An Allegory of Europe

This lively sketch is a modello or riccordo for the overdoor formerly in the Conference Room of the Residenz, Munich, depicting one of a set of The Four Continents, which were destroyed during the Second World War. Anna Paola Zugni-Tauro dates these paintings to 1717, and further notes that when this room was redecorated by François Cuvilliés in 1730, he might have reincorporated the overdoors into the new scheme, tempering his designs to fit with the existing canvas (see A.P. Zugni-Tauro, Gaspare Diziani, Venice, 1971, p. 105, pl. 7).