Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, also known as Giambattista Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school. He was prolific, and worked not only in Italy, but also in Germany and Spain.
Paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Deposition (Tiepolo) (1767)
Deposition is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, one of his last works, produced in Madrid in 1770 less than a year before his death. It belonged to the Portuguese Pinto-Basto family for a long period and was bought in 2008 by the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, where it now hangs.
It was auctioned on 29 November 2007 by the auction house Leiria e Nascimento, with the Portuguese State exercising its purchase option right, and acquiring the work for 1.5 million euros.
The Banquet of Cleopatra (Tiepolo) (1743)
The Banquet of Cleopatra is a painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo completed in 1744. It is now in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
The subject of the painting is a supposed historical banquet, hosted by Cleopatra for Marc Antony, and described by both Pliny's Natural History (9.58.119–121) and Plutarch's Lives (Antony 25.36.1). During this banquet Cleopatra takes an expensive pearl and dissolves it in her wine, prior to imbibing the drink.
Scipio Africanus Freeing Massiva (1719)
Scipio Africanus Freeing Massiva (alt. Scipio Liberating Massiva) is a painting depicting a scene from ancient Roman history by the Venetian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (alt. Giambattista Tiepolo), painted between 1719 and 1721. The painting depicts the Roman general Scipio Africanus after the 209 BCE Battle of Baecula in present-day Spain where he defeated the Carthaginians, capturing their Iberian and North African allies. The painting details the moment in which one of the captured Africans is brought before Scipio, who recognises him to be Massiva, the nephew of a chieftain of Eastern Numidia, Massinissa. Scipio reportedly frees Massiva, sending him home to his uncle laden with gifts and so winning Massinissa's loyalty for Rome.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) was an Italian painter and etcher most famous for his decorative fresco cycles. Tiepolo joined the Venetian painters’ confraternity in 1717 at twenty one years of age. His patrons included such people as doge Giovanni II Cornaro, archbishop Dionisio Dolfin of Udine, the Swedish ambassador Count Carl Gustaf Tessin and Charles III of Spain. Tiepolo died in Madrid while working for Charles III and his work quickly went out of style. Tiepolo's works, especially his frescoes, were developed through a process of drawings and oil sketching and then finally he would work onto the wall where the fresco would be. Tiepolo's work was famous, and is still highly regarded today, for his responses to the light at the site where the painting was to the executed and how this affected his processes.
The Immaculate Conception (Tiepolo) (1767)
The Immaculate Conception is a painting by Italian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). The painting was one of seven altarpieces commissioned in March 1767 from Tiepolo by King Charles III of Spain for the Church of Saint Pascual in Aranjuez, then under construction. This was originally an Alcantarine (Franciscan) monastery that was later assigned to the Conceptionist nuns.
The painting was commissioned in 1767, at a time when the Immaculate Conception was already a common theme in Ecclesiastical art, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (8 December) having been restored to the Calendar of Saints in 1708, though its theology would not be definitively settled as dogma until Pope Pius IX's declaration in 1854. It represents the Immaculate Conception, a tradition of the Catholic Church stating that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin. It depicts the Virgin Mary, surrounded by angels and crowned with the circle of stars. She is shown trampling a snake, representing her victory over the devil. The lilies and the rose are references to hortus conclusus ("enclosed garden"), and symbolize Mary's love, virginity and purity. The painting is now in the Prado Museum, Madrid.
The Flight into Egypt in a Boat (1750)
The Flight into Egypt in a Boat is a 1764–1770 oil on canvas painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a variation on the Flight into Egypt theme featuring a boat rather than the more usual donkey. The two swans beside the boat are symbols of marital fidelity. It is now at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon.
The painting is a variation of the theme of the flight into Egypt made by the Holy Family: here in fact the usual donkey does not appear but in its place there is a boat, on which are Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The boat is guided with touches delicate by three angels, who are preparing to land on the Egyptian coasts. In the water we see two swans which are the allegory of marital fidelity.
Allegory of the Planets and Continents (1752)
Allegory of the Planets and Continents is a 1752 painting (or detailed sketch) by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Done in oil on canvas, the allegorical work uses human figures to represent members of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the planets, and four continents. The painting is an elaborate oil sketch made by Tiepolo in preparation for rendering a similar, larger version of the scene as a massive fresco. Between December 1750 and November 1753, Tiepolo was commissioned to decorate the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg Karl Philipp von Greifenclau zu Vollraths newly constructed palace on the ceiling of a staircase. He created a massive fresco of over 600 m2 (6,500 sq ft), considered the largest fresco in the world and is often thought to be his greatest achievement. The intricate painting depicts figures circling around Tiepolo's rendering of Apollo, the sun god; this represents planets orbiting the Sun. The cornice of the painting symbolize the continents Europe, America, Africa, and Asia.
It was identified in the ceiling of a corridor at the Hendon Hall Hotel, London, in 1954. How it came to be at Hendon Hall is not entirely clear: the house was once owned by the actor David Garrick although he never lived there. The painting differs from the Würzburg fresco in several ways; the fresco includes portraits of Greifenclau, Tiepolo, his two sons, and Balthasar Neumann, and the positions of the Americas and Europe are reversed. There is some divergence among critics as to whether the painting was made before or after the fresco, or whether it is by Tiepolo or his son Domenico Tiepolo.
Alexander the Great and Campaspe in the Studio of Apelles (1740)
Alexander the Great and Campaspe in the Studio of Apelles is an c.1740 history painting by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. It depicts a scene based on a story recorded by Pliny the Elder. Having commissioned a portrait painting of his lover Campaspe from the gifted court painter Apelles, Alexander the Great became aware of the love the artist felt for his mistress and relinquished her to him.
It was one of three paintings Tiepolo produced inspired by the legend. The painting is today in the Getty Museum in California. An earlier depiction by Tiepolo is now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal.
Juno in the Clouds (1735)
Juno in the Clouds is a c.1735 oval painting by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, bought from a private owner for the Louvre Museum in 2020. It shows Juno and her peacock in a cloud, with a putto below. Originally painted in fresco on the ceiling of the Palazzo Sagredo in Venice, it was transferred to canvas early in the 20th century.
Henry III Received at the Villa Contarini (1750)
Henry III Received at the Villa Contarini or Henry III's Visit to the Villa Contarini is a 1750 fresco by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, now in the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. It shows Henry III of France visiting the Italian Contarini family in 1574.
This is a historical genre painting. It represents the visit made by Henry III of France, son of Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici, to the noble Italian family of Contarini in the year 1574. Tiepolo depicts the meeting between the residents of the villa and the king, accompanied by his retinue, within the framework of a spacious and elegant gallery. The scene is framed in painted architectures, with arcades and columns. A master in the art of giving life to scenes of great theatricality and in that of trompe-l'oeil, Tiepolo entrusts the young man seated in the foreground with the mission of creating a shift effect in perspective, thanks to his pose which, throwing his body backwards, lets his legs hang beyond the pictorial frame.
The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (Tiepolo) (1722)
The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew is a 1722 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian artist Giambattista Tiepolo, produced during the first years he was active in Venice. It still hangs in the church of San Stae in the city, for which it was painted.
In his will, the Venetian patrician Andrea Stazzio left a sizeable sum to produce paintings on the lives of the twelve apostles by Tiepolo, Sebastiano Ricci, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini and other artists, all to be hung in the nave of San Stae, though they were later moved to the chancel. Francisco Goya very probably saw Tiepolo's work during his trip to Italy in 1771 – Tiepolo worked in Madrid for a time and Goya certainly knew and appreciated his work. Glendinning argues that the work's violence was an influence on Goya's The Third of May 1808.
Time Unveiling Truth (Tiepolo) (1745)
Time Unveiling Truth is a painting c. 1745–1750 by the Italian painter Tiepolo. It is now on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in Boston, Massachusetts. Father Time is shown on a chariot with a scythe uncovering the body of a female figure of Truth.
The work remained in Verona until the 19th century, when it was transferred to Paris and resold several times, until it was bought by Rudolph Heinemann in 1960, who took it to New York. In 1961, it was sold to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where the work remains today.
Ca' Dolfin Tiepolos (1720)
The Ca' Dolfin Tiepolos are a series of ten oil paintings made c.1726–1729 by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo for the main reception room or salone of the Palazzo Ca' Dolfin, the palazzo of the patrician Dolfin family (sometimes spelled Delfini, Delfino, or Delfin) in Venice. The paintings are theatrical depictions of events from the history of Ancient Rome, with a typically Venetian emphasis on drama and impact rather than historical accuracy. They were painted on shaped canvases and set into the architecture with frescoed surrounds.
The Tarantine Triumph was the first work completed, depicting the triumph awarded to Manius Curius Dentatus after defeating Pyrrhus of Epirus in the Battle of Beneventum, the last battle of the Pyrrhic War in 275 BC, at which captured elephants were first seen in Rome. The Triumph of Marius was the last completed, depicting the triumph awarded to Gaius Marius after defeating Jugurtha of Numidia in the Jugurthine War: it is dated 1729, and includes a self-portrait of Tiepolo on the left. The differences in style and composition between the works demonstrate Tiepolio's rapid development as a painter.