Diana, Apollo and Nymphs
Giovanni Battista Tiepoloc.1750
Dulwich Picture Gallery
London, United Kingdom
"This is a sketch for a surviving ceiling decoration by Tiepolo in the first-floor salon of the Villa Cornaro at Merlengo, dating from c.1750. In the finished ceiling, Tiepolo organised the composition from one single viewpoint on one of the long sides; in this sketch there are two viewpoints, one under each group. An unscrupulous art dealer in the 18th century exploited this fact and cut the image in two across the middle (presumably to double his profits); this was how Francis Bourgeois acquired it, and how it has been displayed until now.
Recent conservation has seen the two images joined together again, as Tiepolo painted them, and a new frame made to match our other Tiepolo sketch (DPG278), hanging nearby."
- Title: Diana, Apollo and Nymphs
- Creator Lifespan: 1696 - 1770
- Date: c.1750
- Physical Dimensions: w330 x h333 cm
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil
- Work Nationality: Italian
- Support: Canvas
- Provenance: Dubois; his sale, London, Christie's, 29 May 1802, lot 16 (ÔA Pair of Sketches for Ceilings'). Bt Bourgeois for £6.6; London, Noel Desenfans and/or Sir Francis Bourgeios, 1802-1807; London, Sir Francis Bourgeois; Bourgeois Bequest, 1807-1811; 1813 inv. as two pictures, nos 292, 293.
- Further Information: In this sketch Diana, chaste goddess of the hunt, triumphs over Venus and Cupid, goddess and god of carnal love. As Diana rises towards the heavens, accompanied by her stag, Venus and cupid fall downwards, have succumbed to earthly desires.
- Artist: Tiepolo, Giambattista
- Acquisition Method: Bourgeois, Sir Peter Francis (Bequest, 1811)
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