venetian art, 1600–1797 835
in Venice when he accepted the commission from the Labia, successful
businessmen from Catalan origin, to design the murals for the ballroom
of their palace.66 Upon entering, the viewer is struck by the overpower-
ing illusionistic architecture that embraces the whole space and virtually
opens up all the walls. Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna had collaborated with
tiepolo on other enterprises, previously designing the “stage” for the his-
torical scenes.67 One immediately wonders which of the two artists had
acted as the director in such an orchestral composition. Judging by its suc-
cessful effect, one thing is clear: there must have been a symbiosis between
the figurista and the quadraturista in a continual and dynamic interplay
of mutual inspiration; a symbiosis that may have also meant making con-
cessions to one another.68 the key scene is represented in the Banquet of
Cleopatra with Antonius. With a grand gesture while maintaining supreme
inner calm, the last queen of egypt is about to drop the pearl into her
glass of wine. Her composure should convince antonius of the fact that
she can easily afford to waste such a precious gem. although the iconog-
raphy may allude to the proverbial riches of the Labia, the chosen scenes
may have had a deeper implicit meaning. Could they be seen, perhaps, as
the visually expressed attempt at higher political aspirations? (Fig. 22.7)69
tiepolo, born in 1697, had started painting independently well before
- His early work, under the influence of Federico Bencovich and
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta and not without a vein of brutality,70 was
66 the family had settled down in Venice in 1528, and entered the Libro d’Oro in 1646.
See, for the family Labia, terisio Pignatti, Filippo Pedrocco, elisabetta Martinelli Pedrocco,
Palazzo Labia a Venezia (turin, 1982). the first standard work on G. B.tiepolo was by
antonio Morassi, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo (London, 1962);
see, for the “opera completa” of tiepolo’s paintings, Massimo Gemin and Filippo Pedrocco,
Giambattista Tiepolo. I dipinti. Opera completa (Venice, 1993). For the young tiepolo, see
exh. cat. (Udine, 2011), Il giovane Tiepolo: la scoperta della luce (Udine, 2011).
67 adriano Mariuz (ed. Giuseppe Pavanello), Tiepolo (Verona 2008); adriano Mariuz, Le
storie di Antonio e Cleopatra. Giambattista Tiepolo e Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna a Palazzo
Labia (Venice, 2004); Gottdang, Venedigs antike Helden, pp. 215–40; and Keith Christiansen,
“tiepolo, theatre, and the notion of theatricality,” The Art Bulletin 81 (1999), 665–92.
68 Possible tensions between Colonna and tiepolo are discussed in Svetlana alpers
and Michael Baxandell, Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence (new Haven/London, 1994),
pp. 93–99. See also, and for a deeper study of the collaboration between quadraturista and
figurista in general, Matthias Bleyl, Deckenmalerei des 18. Jahrhundert. Die hoheKunst der
Dekoration im Zeitalters Tiepolo (Munich, 2005).
69 Suggested by Gottdang, Venedigs antike Helden, pp. 215–40.
70 Da Canal, in his biography of Lazzarini, inserted an overview of tiepolo’s work, stat-
ing with some regret, so it seems, in the opening phrases, that he had abandoned the
“maniera” of his teacher. Giannantonio Moschini, ed., Vincenzo da Canal, Vita di Gregorio
Lazzarini ( 1732 ) (Venice, 1809), p. xxxi.