Citation link:
https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/monatshefte_kunstwissenschaft1909/0404
A Connecting-Link between Tiepolo
:: and the Guardi Family ::
By George A. Simonson
In a back-number of the Burlington Magazine (July, 1907). I briefly referred
to a discovery which I then had the good fortune to make, of a black and white study
by Giambattista Tiepolo, which derives a peculiar interest from the fact that there is
affixed to it a contemporary inscription, in the writing of one of the Guardis from
Mastellina (Val di Sole, Trentino). Though the inscription upon this drawing of
Tiepolo who, I may be permitted to recall the fact, became the brother-in-law of the
celebrated Venetian landscape-painter Francesco Guardi, by marrying his sister Cecilia,
does not enlighten ns on the effect of this interesting family alliance upon the personal
relations subsisting between these two masters, it would seem to allow the inference
that Tiepolo was on an intimate footing with a kinsman of Guardi. Such a document,
however slight the incident may be which it chronicles, deserves, I venture to think,
to be preserved, more especially when it is no longer within reach of the art student.
The drawing of Tiepolo in question is now in the possession of Miss Sarah
Cooper Hewitt of New York, who, by kindly placing at my disposal a photograph
of it, enables me to reproduce it. It is commonly said that when works of art stray
to the New World, their return to our hemisphere is very rare. When, like Tiepolo's
study, they have historical as well as artistic claims to our attention, it seems more
than ever desirable to take time by the forelock, whenever feasible, and to keep
photographic records of them, lest they be completely lost sight of on the other side
of the Atlantic. This is an additional reason for rescuing from oblivion the subject
which we reproduce.
Though it is primarily with the endorsement upon Tiepolo's study that we are
here concerned, a few remarks concerning its theme and intrinsic merits may not be
out of place. The reader who scans it, will hardly fall to recognise in its main-
d'ceuvre a good example of Tiepolo's finished sepia drawings, heightened with white.
Tiepolo has frequently represented cognate allegorical subjects in his fresco paintings
and it may be that the composition which we are discussing, was a preparation for adorning
the ceiling of some Venetian palace. The subject represented in it, which exhibits
his usual creative imagination and bold execution, seems to have been utilised by
Tiepolo more than once, as M. Henry de Chennevrieres, the author of „Les Tiepolo",
describes another composition exactly corresponding to that of the annexed repro-
duction. „Au centre de nuages egayes de petits genies", he writes1), „Venus remet
Cupidon entre les mains du vieux Temps, tout surpris de ce depot". In the Bischoffsheim
9 See M. Henry de Chennevrieres ~ Les Tiepolo, (Les Artistes celebres) Paris, 1896
(commencement of page 20).
:: and the Guardi Family ::
By George A. Simonson
In a back-number of the Burlington Magazine (July, 1907). I briefly referred
to a discovery which I then had the good fortune to make, of a black and white study
by Giambattista Tiepolo, which derives a peculiar interest from the fact that there is
affixed to it a contemporary inscription, in the writing of one of the Guardis from
Mastellina (Val di Sole, Trentino). Though the inscription upon this drawing of
Tiepolo who, I may be permitted to recall the fact, became the brother-in-law of the
celebrated Venetian landscape-painter Francesco Guardi, by marrying his sister Cecilia,
does not enlighten ns on the effect of this interesting family alliance upon the personal
relations subsisting between these two masters, it would seem to allow the inference
that Tiepolo was on an intimate footing with a kinsman of Guardi. Such a document,
however slight the incident may be which it chronicles, deserves, I venture to think,
to be preserved, more especially when it is no longer within reach of the art student.
The drawing of Tiepolo in question is now in the possession of Miss Sarah
Cooper Hewitt of New York, who, by kindly placing at my disposal a photograph
of it, enables me to reproduce it. It is commonly said that when works of art stray
to the New World, their return to our hemisphere is very rare. When, like Tiepolo's
study, they have historical as well as artistic claims to our attention, it seems more
than ever desirable to take time by the forelock, whenever feasible, and to keep
photographic records of them, lest they be completely lost sight of on the other side
of the Atlantic. This is an additional reason for rescuing from oblivion the subject
which we reproduce.
Though it is primarily with the endorsement upon Tiepolo's study that we are
here concerned, a few remarks concerning its theme and intrinsic merits may not be
out of place. The reader who scans it, will hardly fall to recognise in its main-
d'ceuvre a good example of Tiepolo's finished sepia drawings, heightened with white.
Tiepolo has frequently represented cognate allegorical subjects in his fresco paintings
and it may be that the composition which we are discussing, was a preparation for adorning
the ceiling of some Venetian palace. The subject represented in it, which exhibits
his usual creative imagination and bold execution, seems to have been utilised by
Tiepolo more than once, as M. Henry de Chennevrieres, the author of „Les Tiepolo",
describes another composition exactly corresponding to that of the annexed repro-
duction. „Au centre de nuages egayes de petits genies", he writes1), „Venus remet
Cupidon entre les mains du vieux Temps, tout surpris de ce depot". In the Bischoffsheim
9 See M. Henry de Chennevrieres ~ Les Tiepolo, (Les Artistes celebres) Paris, 1896
(commencement of page 20).