Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
1696-1770
Saturn and Cupid
ca. 1737-1740
10 9/16 x 12 7/16 inches (268 x 315 mm)
Pen and brown ink and wash, over black chalk, on paper.
IV, 125
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
Notes
Study for figures of Saturn and Cupid in the south portion of the ceiling in the Palazzo Clerici, Milan, painted in 1740.
This magisterial drawing depicts Saturn holding his scythe while clutching Cupid. Both figures correspond very closely to a detail in the fresco that Giambattista Tiepolo painted in 1740 in the gallery of the Palazzo Clerici, Milan. In the finished work, Cupid's left arm is outstretched toward Venus, goddess of love, who is shown seated nearby. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
Regarding the drawings for Palazzo Clerici, at the Morgan and elsewhere, see William Barcham, Tiepolo's Pictorial Imagination: Drawings for Palazzo Clerici (New York, Morgan Drawing Institute, 2017).
This magisterial drawing depicts Saturn holding his scythe while clutching Cupid. Both figures correspond very closely to a detail in the fresco that Giambattista Tiepolo painted in 1740 in the gallery of the Palazzo Clerici, Milan. In the finished work, Cupid's left arm is outstretched toward Venus, goddess of love, who is shown seated nearby. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
Regarding the drawings for Palazzo Clerici, at the Morgan and elsewhere, see William Barcham, Tiepolo's Pictorial Imagination: Drawings for Palazzo Clerici (New York, Morgan Drawing Institute, 2017).
Inscriptions/Markings
Watermark: trefoil on stem below letters "PA".
Associated names
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Bibliography
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan: Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London: Privately printed, 1905-1912, IV, 125, repr.
Cambridge, Fogg Museum of Art, Venice in the Eighteenth Century, 1948, no. 36.
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, The Pierpont Morgan Treasures, 1960, no. 81.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings from New York Collections III, The 18th Century in Italy, 1971, p. 49, no. 91, repr.
Aikema, Bernard. Tiepolo and His Circle: Drawings in American Collections. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Art Museum; New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1996, no. 44, repr.
Cambridge, Fogg Museum of Art, Venice in the Eighteenth Century, 1948, no. 36.
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, The Pierpont Morgan Treasures, 1960, no. 81.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings from New York Collections III, The 18th Century in Italy, 1971, p. 49, no. 91, repr.
Aikema, Bernard. Tiepolo and His Circle: Drawings in American Collections. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Art Museum; New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1996, no. 44, repr.
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Catalog link
Department