(Verona 1723–1787)
Juno unshackling Time and Chastity with Matrimonial Fidelity and Good Council,
oil on paper, laid down on canvas, 46.5 x 62.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Cavizzoli, Milan, 1957 (as Giambattista Tiepolo);
Aprosio, Montecarlo (as Lorenzo Tiepolo);
Private collection, Italy;
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
G. Pavanello, Affreschi del Settecento in palazzi veneziani: Costantino Cedini e Giovanni Scajario (con una nota su Giambattista Tiepolo), in: AFAT, 35, 2016, p. 175 and 177, fig. 74 (as Giovanni Scajario)

We are grateful to Enrico Lucchese for suggesting the attribution and for his help in cataloguing the present lot (written communication).

The present painting was published by Giuseppe Pavanello (see literature), together with three similar preparatory studies, that were given an erroneous attribution to the follower of Tiepolo, Giovanni Scajario (Asiago 1726-1796) and connected to a nuptial decorative cycle. The scholar further suggested that these works had been ‘with Cavizzoli in Milan in 1957 and Aprosio in Montecarlo with attributions to Giambattista and Lorenzo Tiepolo’. However, there is a direct connection between these four bozzetti or studies with frescoes in Piedmont and the Veneto by Francesco Lorenzi – one of which had already been identified by Andrea Tomezzoli (A. Tomezzoli, Francesco Lorenzi, in: Saggi e Memorie di Storia dell’ arte, 24, 2000, p. 251, fig. 111) as a study for the ceiling in the Sala Rossa of Palazzo Gozzani di San Giorgio in Casale Monferrato.

The present painting of Juno unshackling Time and Chastity with Marital Fidelity and Good Council is evidently the study for the ceiling painting (enclosed in an oval ornamental frame by Paolo Guidolini) of the same subject, which was executed by Lorenzi in the chamber dedicated to Juno in the Palazzo Emilei Forti in Verona (cfr. Tomezzoli, op. cit., 2000, p. 269, cat. 72B; Chignola 2002, pp. 180 and 185).

Compared with the final ceiling painting, there are minimal variations which principally concern the centrally positioned figure of Chastity and the head of the winged genius, Time, on the lower left. Bearing in mind their differing modes of execution and type of support, it is nevertheless in the pictorial handling of the colour where the main differences can be seen. This is owed to Lorenzi’s objective to refine his images from the scale of cameos or classical bas-relieves. Such a divergence is exemplified by the detail of Juno’s veil which is blown out into a sail: in the present painting, this feature is rendered with vitality, in somewhat muddied colours similar to Tiepolo, whilst in the ceiling painting it seems to be frozen and is rendered in a tone of mauve that is seemingly in a scale ton sur ton with the nearby cloud. The fresco in the Sala di Giunone, and the present study, were in turn repeated in another variant composition for the Sala Gialla of the previously mentioned Palazzo Gozzani (Tomezzoli, op. cit., 2000, pp. 246-247, cat. 64B; I. Ghignola [ed.], Francesco Lorenzi [1723-1787], exhibition catalogue, Verona 2002, pp. 114, 120), where the scene is played out within an oval frame (once more attributed to Guidolini). Here, however, the allegorical personifications in the upper left are omitted, while the belt held up by Chastity (or in this case Pleasure) is inscribed with the word ‘Voluptas’ and the chained genius at the lower left is now female (and possibly represents Chastity?).

The decorations for Casale Monferrato have been dated to between 1779 and 1781 and they precede those in Palazzo Emilei Forti, which was restored by the architect Ignazio Pellegrini in 1780 (see A. M. Caiani, Affreschi e disegni inediti di Francesco Lorenzi, in: Arte Veneta, XXVI, 1972, p. 164). Guidolini and Lorenzi definitively returned to the Piedmont in 1783, however, in May 1781 and in the same month of 1782 payments are recorded to the quadraturista Guidolini for his work in Palazzo Frigimelica in Padua, just as on 15 May 1781 Lorenzi is present in Verona for the consignment to Giovanni Emilei of the Lorgna gallery (see Tomezzoli, op. cit., 2000, p. 268).

The present study should therefore be dated to 1781-82, in tandem with the decorative cycle in Verona: in this way, it is a fine example from Francesco Lorenzi’s final period of activity as a decorator. Lorenzi has been described as ‘a cultured artist who concluded the great civilisation of the Venetian rococo by according his style to the emerging new fashion which was then influencing the culture of the Veneto. It is a surprise that the painter’s taste was not at all academic, and that he was able to transplant the spirit of Tiepolo into the new neoclassical language’ (R. Pallucchini, La pittura nel Veneto. Il Settecento, II, Milan 1996, p. 260).