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Provenance

Possibly Ca' Zenobio, Venice, by 1732[1] until at least 1817 or 1844.[2] Villa Grimani-Vendramin Calergi, Noventa Padovana until 1905 or 1909.[3] (Count Dino Barozzi, Venice). C. Ledyard Blair [d. 1950], Peapack-Gladstone, New Jersey, by 1909.[4] Maisie Dreicer Whyte de Kerchove [1889-1976, née Shainwald, from 1908-1921 Mrs. Michael Dreicer, from 1923 Mrs. Jardine Bell Whyte, from 1935 Baroness de Kerchove]; sold or consigned 24 February 1948 to (French and Co., New York); sold 7 December 1949 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1961 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1950
The Samuel H. Kress Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-1953, no. 25 (cat. by William Suida in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 46/277, 1950).
1961
Exhibition of Art Treasures for America from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1961-1962, no. 93A, as A Scene from Roman History.

Technical Summary

The support consists of four lengths of a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric joined with three vertical seams. There are two ground layers: a warm ocher-colored layer over a white layer. The upper ground layer is visible between some contour boundaries and in the helmet in the left foreground. The entire painting was executed simultaneously, although the wooden staffs were apparently added last. The paint was applied in a creamy consistency that retained the fluid brushstrokes without producing high impasto. A wide range of opaque to glazed paints was employed. Thin brown lines were added over the paint to emphasize contours. Small adjustments in contours and overlapping forms appear as pentimenti in normal light and as brushstrokes under the thin surface paint in raking light. No major changes are evident. Infrared reflectography reveals no underdrawing; however, several lines were drawn in a dry medium on a dry underlayer to position the flagpole at the right side.

Cusping is visible on both sides and the bottom, and is presumed to be present along the top edge. There are numerous small tears throughout the upper section, with a horizontal tear of 53 cm and a vertical tear of 77 cm at the right edge. The impasto is slightly moated. The extensive inpainting in the sky has whitened. The varnish is moderately discolored. The painting was relined, discolored varnish was removed, and the painting was restored by Mario Modestini in 1950-1951.

Bibliography

1935
Lorenzetti, Giulio. "Tre note Tiepoloesche." Rivista di Venezia 14 (1935): 385-392, repro.
1942
Lorenzetti, Giulio. Das Jahrhundert Tiepolos. Vienna, 1942: LIII, pl. 38.
1943
Morassi, Antonio. Tiepolo. Bergamo, 1943: 20, pl. 45.
1955
Morassi, Antonio. G. B. Tiepolo. His Life and Work. London, 1955: 16, fig. 19.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 247, repro., as A Scene from Roman History.
1962
Morassi, Antonio. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo. London, 1962: 67.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 318, repro., as A Scene from Roman History.
1965
Panofsky, Erwin. "Classical Reminiscences in Titian's Portraits: Another Note on his 'Allocution of the Marchese del Vasto.'" In Festschrift für Herbert von Einem zum 16. Februar 1965. Ed. by G. von der Osten and G. Kauffmann. Berlin,1965: 198, pl. 40-41
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 127, as A Scene from Roman History.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:338, color repro., as A Scene from Roman History.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 113, repro., as A Scene from Roman History.
1968
Pallucchini, Anna. L'opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 1968: 100, no. 97B, repro.
1968
Precerutti Garberi, Mercedes. Affreschi settecenteschi delle ville venete. Milan, 1968: 63.
1969
Panofsky, Erwin. Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic. New York, 1969: 77.
1971
Rizzi, Aldo. Mostra del Tiepolo. Dipinti. Exh. cat. Villa Manin di Passariano, Udine. Milan, 1971: 58.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 198.
1973
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 143-144, fig. 282.
1974
Shapley, Fern Rusk. "Tiepolo's Zenobia Cycle." In Hortus Imaginum. Essays in Western Art, edited by Robert Engass and Marilyn Stokstad. Lawrence, Kansas, 1974: 192-198, fig. 131.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 338, repro.
1979
Knox, George. "Giambattista Tiepolo: Queen Zenobia and Ca'Zenobia: 'una delle prime sue fatture'." The Burlington Magazine 121 (1979): 413-414, 418, fig. 8.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:450-453, 544-545; 2:pl. 325.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 342, no. 466, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 390, repro.
1985
Knox, George. "Roman and Less Roman Elements in Venetian History Painting, 1650-1750." Revue d'art canadien/Canadian Art Review 12 (1985): 177.
1993
De Grazia, Diane. "Giambattista Tiepolo e la regina Zenobia." Ca' de Sass no. 123 (September 1993): 2-7, repro.
1993
Gemin, Massimo, and Filippo Pedrocco. Giambattista Tiepolo. Venice, 1993: 30-31 (color repro.), 236-237, no. 51, repro.
1996
De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 309-317, color repro. 313.
2002
Pedrocco, Filippo. Giambattista Tiepolo. Milan, 2002: no. 92/3, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 243, no. 192, color repro.

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