The Morgan is home to one of the world’s largest and most important collections of drawings by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770) and his eldest son Domenico (1727–1804), with more than 300 representative examples of their lively invention and masterful techniques. Combining highlights from the Morgan’s collection with carefully selected loans, this exhibition will provide a comprehensive look at the Tiepolos’ work as draftsmen, focusing on the role of drawing in their creative process and the distinct physical and stylistic properties of their graphic work.
Between 1797 and his death in 1804, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo—the son of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, whose work is on view nearby—created 104 inventive wash drawings for his series Divertimenti per li ragazzi (Diversions for Children). The drawings illustrate the life of the tragicomic commedia dell’arte figure Punchinello (identified by his white garments, conical hat, and beaked mask), a popular protagonist in Italian theater and puppetry starting in the 1600s. Punchinello collapses on the road takes place just before the protagonist’s death. Having suffered a fall, he is surrounded by eleven concerned companions and three lamenting women. While the Divertimenti presents Punchinello as a kind of everyman, Tiepolo also frequently referenced the life of Christ. This drawing recalls the scene of Christ falling as he carries the cross.
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
Italian, 1727–1804
Punchinello collapses on the road, ca. 1797–1804
Pen and brown ink, and brush and brown washes, over traces of charcoal
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray; 2019.869
Gray Collection Trust, Art Institute of Chicago
Photography by Art Institute of Chicago Imaging Department
At the core of the collection and exhibition are substantial groups of Giambattista’s drawings that relate to major ceiling fresco projects of the 1740s and 1750s. A fresh look at the style, function, and material properties of these working drawings has yielded new insights into their purposes.
Most significantly, the exhibition presents for the first time extremely rare pen studies for Tiepolo’s magnum opus, the ceiling fresco above the staircase of the Würzburg Residenz of 1752, and a group of bold sketches newly connected with his ceiling fresco of 1754 at the Venetian church of Santa Maria della Pietà. Other sections of the exhibition highlight the introduction of Domenico to the family workshop, the exchanges between father and son, and the great series drawings by both: Giambattista’s fantastic heads and figures seen di sotto in su, and Domenico’s drawings of animals, biblical scenes, and contemporary life. The exhibition will end with a wall including striking examples from Domenico’s late Punchinello series.
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