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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0089
56 THE SEATED LADIES—ROCOCO COMPARISONS
Another isolated fragment is inserted here in Fig. 33 as showing excep-
tionally fine delineation of a female head. Here the scale is somewhat
smaller.
Group E. Group E, which bears the mark of being by another artist, presents
somewhat higher figures and may be reasonably supposed to belong to a
continuation of similar scenes on a separate
panel. If the arm of the lady on the right is
stretched down in the manner indicated she
must be taken to be the terminal figure of the
group hailing some friend in the ' pit' below.
Similar detached action on the part of the
outermost figure has been already noted in the
case of Group B. Were these ladies perhaps
pointing or beckoning to favourite champions
Such gesticulations would have been: quite in the
Rococo
compari-
sons.
mm
Fig. 33. Female Heads.
in the arena beyond ?
spirit of the Spanish Corrida.
These scenes of feminine confidences, of tittle-tattle and society scandals,
take us far away from the productions of Classical Art in any Age. Such
lively genre and the rococo atmosphere bring us nearer indeed to quite
modern times. We recall such groups of fashionable spectators—in these
cases embracing both sexes—as that depicted in Tiepolo's Fresco of the
reception of Henri III at the Villa Contarini,1 absorbed in their own social
interests, gossiping and flirting under cover of fans, on the balconies above.
Analogous groups were executed by Pietro Lunghi in the Palazzo Grassi.2
So, too, the bevies of gay Minoan ladies seated in animated converse between
the piers and pillars of the Grand Stand seem to reincarnate themselves in
Guardi's modish figures, with high perukes—feathered, bejewelled, smirking,
and ogling their beaux, equally bewigged and powdered—who fill the palchi
of the TeatroSan Benedetto,3 little concerned with the ball below. Similar
scenes in the loges of the Theatre Francais are depicted in a print of Moreau
le Jeune,4 where the company has the air of general detachment from the
crowning of the bust of Voltaire on the stage before them, which they had
ostensibly come to celebrate.
These Minoan ladies, indeed, seated in the interspaces of the Grand
way and pointing in the direction of No. 3. C. F. Bell, Keeper of the Fine Art Depart-
This may be taken to show that her head was
turned in the same direction.
1 Molmenti, Tiepolo (1911): Plates 196,
197. For the selection of these and other
later comparisons I am much indebted to Mr.
ment in the Ashmolean Museum.
2 Aldo Rava, P. Longhi, Plates 88, 89.
3 G. Fiocco, F. Guardi, Plate LXII.
4 ' Couronnement du buste de Voltaire '
Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1903, p. 387).
(see
Another isolated fragment is inserted here in Fig. 33 as showing excep-
tionally fine delineation of a female head. Here the scale is somewhat
smaller.
Group E. Group E, which bears the mark of being by another artist, presents
somewhat higher figures and may be reasonably supposed to belong to a
continuation of similar scenes on a separate
panel. If the arm of the lady on the right is
stretched down in the manner indicated she
must be taken to be the terminal figure of the
group hailing some friend in the ' pit' below.
Similar detached action on the part of the
outermost figure has been already noted in the
case of Group B. Were these ladies perhaps
pointing or beckoning to favourite champions
Such gesticulations would have been: quite in the
Rococo
compari-
sons.
mm
Fig. 33. Female Heads.
in the arena beyond ?
spirit of the Spanish Corrida.
These scenes of feminine confidences, of tittle-tattle and society scandals,
take us far away from the productions of Classical Art in any Age. Such
lively genre and the rococo atmosphere bring us nearer indeed to quite
modern times. We recall such groups of fashionable spectators—in these
cases embracing both sexes—as that depicted in Tiepolo's Fresco of the
reception of Henri III at the Villa Contarini,1 absorbed in their own social
interests, gossiping and flirting under cover of fans, on the balconies above.
Analogous groups were executed by Pietro Lunghi in the Palazzo Grassi.2
So, too, the bevies of gay Minoan ladies seated in animated converse between
the piers and pillars of the Grand Stand seem to reincarnate themselves in
Guardi's modish figures, with high perukes—feathered, bejewelled, smirking,
and ogling their beaux, equally bewigged and powdered—who fill the palchi
of the TeatroSan Benedetto,3 little concerned with the ball below. Similar
scenes in the loges of the Theatre Francais are depicted in a print of Moreau
le Jeune,4 where the company has the air of general detachment from the
crowning of the bust of Voltaire on the stage before them, which they had
ostensibly come to celebrate.
These Minoan ladies, indeed, seated in the interspaces of the Grand
way and pointing in the direction of No. 3. C. F. Bell, Keeper of the Fine Art Depart-
This may be taken to show that her head was
turned in the same direction.
1 Molmenti, Tiepolo (1911): Plates 196,
197. For the selection of these and other
later comparisons I am much indebted to Mr.
ment in the Ashmolean Museum.
2 Aldo Rava, P. Longhi, Plates 88, 89.
3 G. Fiocco, F. Guardi, Plate LXII.
4 ' Couronnement du buste de Voltaire '
Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1903, p. 387).
(see