"Exceptional exhibition" Les Echos
"At the Beaux-Arts in Paris, a luminous tribute to the Tiepolo family" La Croix
"Tiepolo & Cie, une famille en or" Connaissance des arts
"An exceptional collection of drawings and etchings celebrating the artistic genius of 18th-century Venice" Sortir à Paris
This exceptional exhibition brings together drawings and etchings by Giambattista Tiepolo and his two sons, Giandomenico and Lorenzo Tiepolo, a family of virtuoso artists in 18th-century Venice.
The Beaux-Arts de Paris owns a remarkable collection of ten works by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770), making it the second-largest public collection of the artist's drawings in France. Above all, this collection is the only one in France to include drawings not only by Giambattista, but also by his two painter sons, Giandomenico (1727-1804) and Lorenzo (1736-1776), as well as another of Tiepolo's assistants in the 1730s, Giovanni Raggi. This collection alone provides an overview of graphic practices within the family and the studio.
The study of these sheets and prints, combined with works by other artists - sources of inspiration such as Rembrandt, masters such as Piazzetta, and contemporaries such as Canaletto, Guardi and Novelli - highlights the great modernity of their art. This is particularly evident in their ability to produce variations on the same theme, both in traditional religious and mythological subjects and in figure studies, particularly caricatures, as well as scenes from Venetian life. The exhibition also explores the relationship between the father and his sons, and the work within a family of artists.
The tour begins with a series of studies of heads and faces that raise the question of training in the Tiepolo studio. It then moves on to religious paintings and large-scale secular decors produced by the Tiepolos and their contemporaries in Venice, followed by autonomous graphic works conceived outside of any painted project, as pure graphic exercises or pleasures, based on iconographic themes repeated almost obsessively, in multiple variants.
It is the exceptional inventiveness of Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo, one of the most fascinating facets of their artistic personalities, that these drawings and prints allow us to rediscover.
Curated by Hélène Gasnault, curator of drawings at Beaux-Arts de Paris, and Giulia Longo, curator of engravings and photos at Beaux-Arts de Paris.
The catalogue
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, with texts by Catherine Loisel, honorary curator at the Musée du Louvre and a specialist in early Italian drawings, Hélène Gasnault, curator of drawings, and Giulia Longo, curator of prints and photographs at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Carnet d'études n°58
112 pages
Price €25
Practical info
from Friday 22 March to Sunday 30 June 2024
(The exhibition will be closed on Wednesday 1 May 2024)
14 rue Bonaparte, Paris 6e
Wednesday to Sunday, 1pm-7pm
2€, 5€ or 10€ the choice is yours!
Giandomenico Tiepolo, Idee pittoresche sopra la fugga in Egitto, vers 1750-1753 Eau-forte
Giovanni Battista, dit Giambattista, Tiepolo, Faune et faunesse, vers 1740-1750, plume, encre brune, lavis brun sur esquisse à la pierre noire
Giovanni Battista, dit Giambattista, Tiepolo, Les Polichinelles faisant la cuisine, vers 1735, plume, encre brune et lavis brun
Francesco Guardi, Projet de plafond, vers 1770-1780 Plume, encre brune, lavis brun et aquarelle
