Boy Holding a Book (Portrait of Lorenzo Tiepolo)
Boy Holding a Book (Portrait of Lorenzo Tiepolo)
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
- Artist Dates
- 1696-1770
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Boy Holding a Book (Portrait of Lorenzo Tiepolo)
- Date
- c. 1747-50
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 48.3 x 39.1 cm (19 x 15-3/8 in)
- K Number
- K232
- Repository
- New Orleans Museum of Art
- Accession Number
- 61.87
- Notes
Provenance
Visconti di Modrone, Milan. (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 29 July 1932; gift to the National Gallery of Art in 1939; deaccessioned in 1952 and returned to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; gift to New Orleans Museum of Art in 1961, no. 61.87.
Catalogue Entry
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Boy Holding a Book (Portrait of Lorenzo Tiepolo)
K232
New Orleans, La., Isaac Delgado Museum of Art (61.87), since 1953.(1) Canvas. 19 X 15 3/8 in. (48.3 X 39.1 cm.). Good condition; cleaned 1953. The attribution of K232 to an early period, 1725/30, in Giovanni Battista's career is explained by its resemblance in general effect and technique to the work of Tiepolo's mentor Piazzetta.(2) Several closely similar versions of the portrait are known: one formerly in a private collection in Paris, and later (1962) in a private collection in Strasbourg;(3) one formerly at Agnew's, London;(4) one recently acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum from the Arnold Kirkeby Collection;(5) and one in a private collection in Paris in 1952.(6) It has been suggested,(7) on the basis of a drawing of a boy's head tentatively identified as a portrait of Lorenzo Tiepolo,(8) that the boy portrayed in K232 may be Lorenzo, the younger of Giovanni Battista's artist sons; but this could be possible only if K232 and the other versions of it were painted as late as about 1750, since Lorenzo was not born until 1737. A more fascinating observation has been made in connection with Domenico Tiepolo's sketch in the National Gallery, London, after his father's fresco of the Marriage of Frederick Barbarossa, at Würzburg. In this sketch Domenico has added some figures not included in the fresco. One of those added is a page looking over his shoulder, at the left, a figure remarkably similar in pose (although in reverse) and in features to K232.(9) The same page, looking over his shoulder in the same direction as the boy in K232, is placed just behind the bride in a sketch of the scene now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.(10) Provenance: Visconti di Modrone, Milan. Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1932 – exhibited: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (221), 1941-52.(11)
References
(1) Catalogue by W. E. Suida, 1953, p. 60, and by P. Wescher, 1966, p. 62, as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. (2) K232 has been attributed (in ms. opinions) to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo by B. Berenson, G. Fiocco, R. Longhi, dating it 1725/30, R. van Marle, F. M. Perkins, and A. Venturi; see also Suida, loco cit. in note 1, above. A. Morassi (G. B. Tiepolo, 1962, p. 33) and also A. Pallucchini (L'Opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo, 1968, no. 173) catalogue it as by Giovanni Battista and the finest of the known versions. (3) Published by G. Fiocco (in Dedalo, vol. XII, 1932, pp. 474 f., reproduced), as by Tiepolo and formerly attributed to Piazzetta. Morassi (loc. cit. in note 2, above) says this version is now in a private collection in Strasbourg. (4) Published by M. Goering (Italienische Malerei 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, 1936, p. 31, pl. 83), as by Tiepolo. (5) Reproduced in the museum's Bulletin of the Art Division, vol. X, no. 4, 1958, unnumbered pl., as by Tiepolo. (6) Included in the exhibition 'Tiepolo et Guardi,' Galerie Cailleux, Paris, Nov. 1952, no. 53, pl. 30 of catalogue, as by Domenico Tiepolo. (7) Loc. cit. of the Cailleux catalogue cited in note 6, above. (8) E. Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo, 1910, p. 239, fig. 232, where the drawing is published as by Giovanni Battista and as owned by Prof. A. Holmberg, Munich. (9) This interesting observation is made by Wescher (loc. cit. in note 1, above). It may also be noted that another figure added by Domenico, a very young page seen full face below the bishop in the London sketch, corresponds closely to the drawing referred to above (see note 8). (10) While the London sketch is believed by M. Levey (National Gallery Catalogues: Eighteenth Century Italian Schools, 1956, pp. 102 ff, and again in his 1971 edition, subtitled Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century, pp. 234 ff.) to be by Domenico after Giovanni Battista's fresco (but by Morassi, pp. 16 f: of op. cit. in note 2, above, given to Giovanni Battista as a study for the fresco), the Boston sketch is catalogued by P. Hendy (Gardner Museum Catalogue, 1931, pp. 358 f:, reproduced) and by Morassi (pp. 6 f. of op. cit. in note 2, above) as a study by Giovanni Battista for the fresco. (11) Preliminary Catalogue, 1941, p. 195, as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.