(Venice 1696–1770 Madrid)
Cherub Heads,
oil on canvas, each 49 x 69 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
with Agnew’s, London, before 1962;
Private collection, Venice

Literature:
A. Morassi, A complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G.B. Tiepolo, London 1962, p. 17, fig. 402 (as Giambattista Tiepolo around 1740-1750);
A. Pallucchini, L’opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo, Milan 1968, p. 106, nn. 140 C, 140 D (as Giambattista Tiepolo around 1740-1750);
F. Pedrocco, Qualche aggiustamento al catalogo di Giovan Battista Tiepolo, in: Per l’arte da Venezia all’Europa. Studi in onore di Giuseppe Maria Pilo, ed. by M. Piantoni/L. De Rossi, Venice 2001, vol. II, pp. 465-468, ill. p. 675. (as Giambattista Tiepolo, 1743-1744);
F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo, Milan 2002, p. 259-260, ill. no. 171/1; 171/2 (as Giambattista Tiepolo, 1743)

The present pair of paintings represents winged cherub heads on a uniform light ochre ground. The spontaneity and pictorial quality of the Heads fully correspond with the style of Giambattista Tiepolo. Originally, the paintings would have belonged to a decorative cycle by the artist of which other parts are known in addition to the present works. These include two putti allegories of Summer and Autumn and two canvases each representing a Vase, one with sheathes of corn and the other with grapes; these are all in private collections. Additionally Morassi related these, on the grounds of style and iconography, to a canvas with Four Putti in Flight with Grapes preserved in the Hermitage. This probably completed the picture cycle, along with various decorative elements and representations of the two missing seasons. It has been suggested that the paintings were made for a chapel, given the allegorical allusion to the bread and wine of the Eucharist. At an unspecified date, the present Cherub Heads were arbitrarily attached to the tops of the canvases representing Vases (their overall measurements were 186 x 70 cm), they were subsequently separated while in the possession of the dealer Baroni. Although they belonged to the same decorative cycle, they clearly reveal different light sources illuminating their subjects and framing edges. However, there are sufficient similarities in the lighting of the Cherub Heads and the Allegories of the Seasons for Pedrocco (2001) to suggest that they originally belonged together, with the Heads located above the canvases representing Summer and Autumn. The picture cycle was probably completed around 1743-44, given the similarity of the Cherubs painted by Tiepolo in 1743 for the Sala Capitolare of the Scuola Grande dei Carmini, Venice.

Tiepolo spent his earliest training in the studio of Gregorio Lazzarini. After initially following the dramatic, tenebrist, style of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, he lightened his palette through the use of luminous and transparent colours inherited from the classicism of Veronese. The first important record of this development can be seen in the great frescoes for the Palazzo Arcivescovile at Udine. During the 1730s and 40s, Tiepolo’s activity was incessant. He was called to undertake numerous monumental works throughout Northern Italy, such as the decorations of the palaces of the Archinto and the Clerici at Milan, of the Colleoni chapel at Bergamo, and Palazzo Labia at Venice. His fame was such that he became the unrivalled international protagonist of art in the 18th century receiving many prestigious, amongst them major commissions that took him to Würzburg in Germany, and to the court of Charles III of Spain in Madrid, where he died in 1770.