Ten 'fantasy portraits' by Giandomenico Tiepolo
For the first time, a series of paintings made during the Spanish residence of the Venetian painter, froma a private collection, are shown in Madrid
The headquarters of fundación Juan March in Madrid present an small format exhibition with ten oils by the Venetian painter, which have never been exposed. Giandomenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804) came to Madrid with his brother Lorenzo and his father Giambattista, accompanying the great master after receiving the comittment of painting the dome of the Palacio Real. This series were designed during the last years of the Spanish stage of the giandomenico (1762-1770).
Ten heads in oil – two are oriental-looking old man and ther other eight young and beautiful women – which have been dated by the curator Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos around 1768. Figures that do not represent specific individuals, but rather to types, which respond in the case of men to the manner of philosophers of the Antiquity, and an ideal of female beauty in the case of women. Fantasy portraits belonging to a genre with a long tradition in Venice, which has its roots in the seventeenth century and whose teachers were Castiglione and Rembrandt.
Almost nothing was known of these compositions to date. The first news we have put them in a private collection of Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), and came out, probably after the Spanish Civil War, to reach its current owners. Proof of interest that have arisen over time are the two copies of the Portrait of a woman with a drum in the Museum of Cádiz, and a copy of Portrait of man in a turban who was in the collection Lázaro Galdiano (and whose current location is unknown). And there is another set of this series consisting of four heads of old men in the collection of the Marquis de Perinat (Madrid) and one canvas in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano with another old man (Madrid).
Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727-1804). Ten fantasy portraits can be seen at the Fundación Juan March (c/ Castelló, 77) until March 4. The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a catalog with texts by the curator, who also is Chief Conservator of the Italian and French Painting area in the Prado Museum. Alejandro Martínez
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Giandomenico Tiepolo. Profile portrait of a woman, supossedly Anna Maria Tiepolo. Circa 1768. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Fundación Juan March.
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Giandomenico Tiepolo. Portrait of a man with turban. Circa 1768. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Fundación Juan March.
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Giandomenico Tiepolo. Portrait of a woman with garland. Circa 1768. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Fundación Juan March.
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Giandomenico Tiepolo. Portrait of bearded old man. Circa 1768. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Fundación Juan March.
Giandomenico Tiepolo. Profile portrait of a woman, supossedly Anna Maria Tiepolo. Circa 1768. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Fundación Juan March.