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Lot Essay
In December 1757 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo purchased a villa at Zianigo, on the Venetian terraferma near Padua. The building was of modest dimensions but was not without architectural distinction, and the purchase was a mark of the artist’s highly successful career.
Giovanni Battista stayed only rarely in the villa, but the residence assumed great significance for his son Giovanni Domenico, who made it his primary home. Over the years, in different campaigns, Domenico decorated the rooms with frescoes populated by a great variety of images creating in Zianigo an extraordinary ensemble. Mythological scenes, religious subjects, depictions of everyday life in the Lagoon, animals, and episodes of the life of Punchinello were painted over the span of many years from 1759 to 1797.
In 1907 the frescoes were removed from the walls of the villa, sold to the City of Venice and transferred to Ca’ Rezzonico where they still are today (A. Mariuz, ‘Giandomenico Tiepolo’s Frescoes at the Villa Zianigo’, Save Venice Journal, 2001, pp. 38-43). Part of the decoration, however, was left behind and presumably is still in situ in the villa (Byam Shaw, op. cit.). Among the frescoes that were not removed was the decoration of a long room on the ground floor that had walls painted with almost monochrome frescoes in shades of ochre, green and white depicting groups of animals: cows and donkeys, bears and wolves, hounds and deer, rams, goats and lions. As James Byam Shaw demonstrated, many of Giovanni Domenico’s animal drawings are related to this decoration. Some studies, such as the lion on the present sheet, correspond exactly to details of the frescoes (fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, A pride of lions. Villa Tiepolo, Zianigo.
Giovanni Battista stayed only rarely in the villa, but the residence assumed great significance for his son Giovanni Domenico, who made it his primary home. Over the years, in different campaigns, Domenico decorated the rooms with frescoes populated by a great variety of images creating in Zianigo an extraordinary ensemble. Mythological scenes, religious subjects, depictions of everyday life in the Lagoon, animals, and episodes of the life of Punchinello were painted over the span of many years from 1759 to 1797.
In 1907 the frescoes were removed from the walls of the villa, sold to the City of Venice and transferred to Ca’ Rezzonico where they still are today (A. Mariuz, ‘Giandomenico Tiepolo’s Frescoes at the Villa Zianigo’, Save Venice Journal, 2001, pp. 38-43). Part of the decoration, however, was left behind and presumably is still in situ in the villa (Byam Shaw, op. cit.). Among the frescoes that were not removed was the decoration of a long room on the ground floor that had walls painted with almost monochrome frescoes in shades of ochre, green and white depicting groups of animals: cows and donkeys, bears and wolves, hounds and deer, rams, goats and lions. As James Byam Shaw demonstrated, many of Giovanni Domenico’s animal drawings are related to this decoration. Some studies, such as the lion on the present sheet, correspond exactly to details of the frescoes (fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, A pride of lions. Villa Tiepolo, Zianigo.