.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This exceptionally well-preserved Lamentation is the most dramatic of the three passages of the Passion of Christ depicted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo during his eight-year stay in Madrid at the end of his life.
Working on his most ambitious decoration program commissioned by the Pisani family for their villa on the Brenta, Tiepolo was obliged to respond to the imperious summons to Madrid of Charles III of Spain. He left Italy, with his sons Domenico and Lorenzo in March 1762 to decorate the ceilings of the Palacio Real. Keen to remain in Spain, Tiepolo sought the grandest commission then available from the Spanish Crown: the seven altarpieces for the Franciscan church of San Pascual in Aranjuez; he was to finish the commission shortly before the end of his life in 1770. However, it was in small works depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ (all measure circa 55 x 40 cm), that Tiepolo excelled during these last years. Their tenderness and pathos show that they were intended for intimate contemplation, in stark contrast to the formal function of his large fresco commissions. In addition to the four compositions on the theme of the Flight into Egypt (see the catalogue of the exhibition in Venice and New York, op. cit., nos. 57a-d, illustrated) Tiepolo is only known to have painted two other small pictures relating to the Passion: the present picture and The Entombment (ibid., no. 58b, illustrated).
Of these small pictures the Lamentation is probably the most successful composition: in the warmth of the early evening, at the feet of the three empty crosses, the Virgin Mary raises her arms in agony over the body of Christ stretched out on the ground in front of her, His head resting on her thigh. The disciples have all left except for Saint John the Evangelist, who, in despair, covers his face with his cloak. A host of angels have alighted around His body; their large wings seem to move in the evening breeze. In the foreground lie the crown of thorns, the superscription and the lance, parallel to the body of Christ. The Church of San Francisco el Grande marks the silhouette of Madrid reminding the spectator of the timelessness of the scene. The clouds in the background echo the contour of the holy group, their light grey acts as a passage between the blue sky and the angels' darker wings. Strong colours are carefully distributed: the bright blue of the Virgin's cloak is balanced by the intense red of St John's robe, and both are complemented by the yellow drapery of the angel on the Virgin's left. The vibrant, fluid brushstrokes seem to make the composition float on the canvas, reminding one of the highly personal style the artist developed in his drawings with ink wash.
The pictorial source for Giambattista's composition is likely to have been the small Lamentation by Rembrandt (fig. a) that was owned by Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice who certainly owned it by 1738 and sold it to George II in 1762 (coincidently the year Giambattista left for Spain; see N. MacLaren and D. Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, London, 1991, p. 326). Both GiambattistaTiepolo and his son Giandomenico must have admired the picture, and, although none remain, it is likely that they made drawings after it. Giandomenico produced a number of painted variants and one drawn version of Rembrandt's composition; two of which are in the National Gallery (inv. 133 and 5589). However, as Keith Christiansen points out, none of them 'attain the poignant eloquence of Giambattista's Lamentation (loc. cit.). Giambattista gives the subject his own interpretation: although the crosses are in the same position as in Rembrandt's composition, they are empty emphasizing the solemn despair. Also the many bystanders which Rembrandt depicted have been eliminated. Whereas Rembrandt depicted an imaginary view of Jerusalem in the background, Giambattista depicts the cityscape of Madrid.
The painting is fist known to have been in the collection of the celebrated nineteenth-century Munich artist, Franz von Lenbach who might have acquired it during his trip to Spain together with the painter Ernst von Liphart in 1867. Lenbach, who had been travelling to Rome and Florence copying old Master pictures for Adolph Friedrich Graf von Schack, had been awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris the same year. After his return in Munich from Spain (and Morocco in 1868) he spent time in Vienna where his contact to Richard Wagner, whom he painted several times, helped him to become a fashionable portrait painter. In 1876 he gave up his studio in Vienna and settled for good in Munich, where he became particularly known for his many portraits of Otto Fürst Bismarck; in 1882 he was raised to the nobility.
Working on his most ambitious decoration program commissioned by the Pisani family for their villa on the Brenta, Tiepolo was obliged to respond to the imperious summons to Madrid of Charles III of Spain. He left Italy, with his sons Domenico and Lorenzo in March 1762 to decorate the ceilings of the Palacio Real. Keen to remain in Spain, Tiepolo sought the grandest commission then available from the Spanish Crown: the seven altarpieces for the Franciscan church of San Pascual in Aranjuez; he was to finish the commission shortly before the end of his life in 1770. However, it was in small works depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ (all measure circa 55 x 40 cm), that Tiepolo excelled during these last years. Their tenderness and pathos show that they were intended for intimate contemplation, in stark contrast to the formal function of his large fresco commissions. In addition to the four compositions on the theme of the Flight into Egypt (see the catalogue of the exhibition in Venice and New York, op. cit., nos. 57a-d, illustrated) Tiepolo is only known to have painted two other small pictures relating to the Passion: the present picture and The Entombment (ibid., no. 58b, illustrated).
Of these small pictures the Lamentation is probably the most successful composition: in the warmth of the early evening, at the feet of the three empty crosses, the Virgin Mary raises her arms in agony over the body of Christ stretched out on the ground in front of her, His head resting on her thigh. The disciples have all left except for Saint John the Evangelist, who, in despair, covers his face with his cloak. A host of angels have alighted around His body; their large wings seem to move in the evening breeze. In the foreground lie the crown of thorns, the superscription and the lance, parallel to the body of Christ. The Church of San Francisco el Grande marks the silhouette of Madrid reminding the spectator of the timelessness of the scene. The clouds in the background echo the contour of the holy group, their light grey acts as a passage between the blue sky and the angels' darker wings. Strong colours are carefully distributed: the bright blue of the Virgin's cloak is balanced by the intense red of St John's robe, and both are complemented by the yellow drapery of the angel on the Virgin's left. The vibrant, fluid brushstrokes seem to make the composition float on the canvas, reminding one of the highly personal style the artist developed in his drawings with ink wash.
The pictorial source for Giambattista's composition is likely to have been the small Lamentation by Rembrandt (fig. a) that was owned by Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice who certainly owned it by 1738 and sold it to George II in 1762 (coincidently the year Giambattista left for Spain; see N. MacLaren and D. Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, London, 1991, p. 326). Both GiambattistaTiepolo and his son Giandomenico must have admired the picture, and, although none remain, it is likely that they made drawings after it. Giandomenico produced a number of painted variants and one drawn version of Rembrandt's composition; two of which are in the National Gallery (inv. 133 and 5589). However, as Keith Christiansen points out, none of them 'attain the poignant eloquence of Giambattista's Lamentation (loc. cit.). Giambattista gives the subject his own interpretation: although the crosses are in the same position as in Rembrandt's composition, they are empty emphasizing the solemn despair. Also the many bystanders which Rembrandt depicted have been eliminated. Whereas Rembrandt depicted an imaginary view of Jerusalem in the background, Giambattista depicts the cityscape of Madrid.
The painting is fist known to have been in the collection of the celebrated nineteenth-century Munich artist, Franz von Lenbach who might have acquired it during his trip to Spain together with the painter Ernst von Liphart in 1867. Lenbach, who had been travelling to Rome and Florence copying old Master pictures for Adolph Friedrich Graf von Schack, had been awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris the same year. After his return in Munich from Spain (and Morocco in 1868) he spent time in Vienna where his contact to Richard Wagner, whom he painted several times, helped him to become a fashionable portrait painter. In 1876 he gave up his studio in Vienna and settled for good in Munich, where he became particularly known for his many portraits of Otto Fürst Bismarck; in 1882 he was raised to the nobility.