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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

The Angel of Fame
Now On View

Maker

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696-1770)

Title

The Angel of Fame

Year

ca. 1750

Medium

  • fresco,
  • mounted on canvas

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • fresco,
  • mounted on canvas

Materials

fresco

Supports

  • plaster

Geography

Place Made: Italy

Dimensions

198.1 x 330.8 cm (78 x 130 1/4 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Museum Appropriation Fund

Object Number

32.246

Type

  • Paintings

Provenance

Wildenstein & Co., Paris and New York, by 1932
Henri Gonse, Paris, by 1911.
Palazzo Labia, Venice

Publications

  • Books

A Handbook of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

  • Books

Selected Works

Exhibition History

European Galleries
Sep 02, 2017

Label copy

In the 1740s, Tiepolo received a private commission to decorate the last great private home to be built on Venice’s Grand Canal. Owned by relative newcomers to Venetian nobility, the Palazzo Labia featured elaborate formal spaces and a spectacular ballroom. Tiepolo collaborated with a specialist in illusionistic painting to create wall paintings in fresco, a technique in which pigments are applied directly to wet plaster. This foreshortened angel, whose trumpet announces the family’s fame, appeared on a ceiling in a formal room, set into a gilded framework. Removed from its original location and mounted on canvas, the painting is seen here without its original architectural context.

Intermission
Dec 16, 2016 – Jul 02, 2017
Italian Painting
Treasures from the Permanent Collection
Apr 06, 1990 – Aug 25, 1990

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696-1770)
The Angel of Fame, ca. 1750
Fresco, mounted on canvas
198.1 x 330.8 cm (78 x 130 1/4 inches)
Museum Appropriation Fund 32.246

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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