TEFAF - Fine Art

The present pair was first published by Antonio Morassi in 1956, who identified them as an early collaboration between Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770) and Girolamo Mengozzi-Colonna (1688-1774), dating the works to circa 1716-18 (1). In his subsequent monograph (1962), Morassi reaffirmed the attribution while proposing a slightly later date, c.1720 (2).

Although aspects of the attribution have been revisited in later scholarship (3), the prevailing consensus has continued to support Morassi’s identification of the paintings as collaborative works by Tiepolo and Mengozzi-Colonna. Giuliano Briganti described them as “esempi molto importanti che riguardano l’attività del Tiepolo. Le architetture stesse di altissima qualità.” (4) Aldo Rizzi emphasised the “eccezionale maestria” of the figures (5), and Rodolfo Pallucchini likewise endorsed the attribution (6).

More recently, Professor Adriano Mariuz reconfirmed Morassi’s attribution on the basis of transparencies (7), and Dario Succi, while proposing a slightly later dating of circa 1726-28 on stylistic grounds, unequivocally affirmed the figures as autograph works by Tiepolo, observing that their quality is incompatible with alternative proposals (8). Dr Keith Christiansen, after first-hand inspection, also accepted the figures and statuary as by Tiepolo, executed in collaboration with a specialist in quadratura, very plausibly Mengozzi-Colonna (9). Accordingly, discussion in the literature has centred less on authorship than on nuances of dating and the precise division of artistic responsibilities within what was clearly a closely integrated enterprise.

Mengozzi-Colonna’s documented partnership with Tiepolo extended from the mid-1720s until the latter’s departure for Spain in 1762. Their earliest securely recorded collaboration is generally associated with the fresco cycle in the Palazzo Dolfin (now Arcivescovado), Udine (c.1725-28) (10). The partnership later achieved monumental expression in the frescoes of the Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra and the Banquet of Antony and Cleopatra in the Palazzo Labia (c.1744), and in the mythological decorations at the Villa Valmarana ai Nani (1757) (11).

The present pair is of particular importance as the only known instance in which the two artists collaborated on independent architectural vedute rather than fresco decorations in which Mengozzi-Colonna supplied illusionistic quadratura framing Tiepolo’s figural inventions. Here the architectural conception assumes autonomous pictorial authority, with Tiepolo’s staffage fully integrated into a monumental perspectival interior.

The precise iconography remains unresolved. Morassi proposed that the grand staircase scene might represent the family of Darius before Alexander the Great, while the companion composition, with its shelves of books and armillary sphere, may depict Archimedes studying in an ancient Alexandrian library (12). The identification of the latter setting as a classical library appears plausible; the former composition may equally evoke Vestal Virgins rather than the Persian royal family. In the absence of documentary evidence linking the works to a specific theatrical or literary source, they are perhaps best understood as erudite architectural capricci drawing upon episodes and atmospheres of classical antiquity.

While Morassi initially favoured a date toward the end of the second decade (13), scholarly consensus now supports a dating in the mid-to-late 1720s, most convincingly c.1726-28 (14). This chronology aligns the works closely with the Udine frescoes and with Tiepolo’s Allegory of the Power of Eloquence in the Palazzo Sandi, Venice (c.1724-25). In both the present pair and the Palazzo Sandi composition, the figures display similarly squared physiognomies, sharply articulated draperies, and a distinctive palette in which acid greens, saturated reds and blues are set against passages of brilliant white. These correspondences situate the paintings within a fully mature early phase of collaboration between the two artists.

The monumental architectural settings are equally significant. As Morassi observed, they present a solemn and splendidly articulated architecture, animated by a masterly command of perspective and heightened by artfully orchestrated light. Both compositions are illuminated from the left, yet they deploy light in contrasting spatial directions. In the library interior, illumination advances toward the spectator, generating a vivid interplay of brilliance and shadow across the staircase and through the open doors in the foreground. In the companion painting, light recedes into depth, intensifying the columns and pilasters before dissolving into a luminous atmospheric distance. Tiepolo’s staffage responds acutely to this architectural illumination: figures are arranged so that advancing light strikes coloured draperies with calculated emphasis. The fainting elder inclines just enough for his white garment to catch the full brilliance, while the ascending figure turns to expose the acid green of his robe in striking contrast against the surrounding chiaroscuro. Such details attest to the integrated nature of the collaboration, in which figural invention and perspectival architecture operate as a unified pictorial system.

This dating is of particular interest, as it not only marks the earliest known collaboration between Tiepolo and Mengozzi-Colonna but also coincides with the celebrated series of Allegorical Tomb paintings commissioned in the 1720s by the Irish theatre impresario Owen McSwiney. Executed by leading Venetian and Bolognese masters, including Sebastiano Ricci, Marco Ricci, Giambattista Piazzetta, Canaletto and Donato Creti, these ambitious collaborative enterprises paired figure painters with specialists in architecture and landscape. Although Tiepolo is not documented among the artists involved in McSwiney’s project, the structural affinities between those works and the present interiors situate the pair within the broader culture of spectacle and collaborative invention that animated Venice in the 1720s.

The present paintings thus occupy a singular and consequential position within the oeuvres of both artists. They illuminate the formative moment at which their respective talents were first brought into deliberate synthesis and remain the only surviving example of their partnership in the form of independent architectural vedute. Whether or not conceived for a specific theatrical context, they encapsulate the spirit of Venetian illusionism at a decisive moment in its early development.

We are grateful to Dr Keith Christiansen, who confirmed the attribution in 2001 and has recently reviewed updated images in email correspondence (2026).

Footnotes
1. A. Morassi, G. B. Tiepolo, Venice, 1956, pp. 227–232.
2. A. Morassi, Giambattista Tiepolo, 1962, loc. cit.
3. See A. Pallucchini, loc. cit.; A. Gonzáles-Palacios, loc. cit.; G. Gemin and F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo. I dipinti. Opera completa, Venice, 1993.
4. G. Briganti, undated letter (cited in earlier sale literature).
5. A. Rizzi, 1971, loc. cit.
6. R. Pallucchini, 1986, loc. cit.
7. A. Mariuz, private communication, 27 September 2000.
8. D. Succi, private communication, 26 August 2000.
9. K. Christiansen, firsthand inspection; see also K. Christiansen, “Tiepolo, Theater and the Notion of Theatricality,” The Art Bulletin, p. 666 ff.
10. On the Udine frescoes, see Morassi, op. cit.; Rizzi, op. cit.
11. Standard monographs on Tiepolo and Mengozzi-Colonna.
12. Morassi, 1956, p. 228.
13. Ibid.
14. Succi, loc. cit., and subsequent stylistic comparisons in later scholarship.