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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