STUDIO OF GIAMBATTISTA TIEPOLO (VENICE 1696-1770 MADRID)

This pair of paintings reproduces parts of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s fresco cycles for villas in the Veneto. The first records one of the frescos celebrating the members of the Soderini family, the original fresco cycle for their villa was lost during combat between Italian and Austrian troops during World War I. The second composition, a ceiling decoration for the Villa Loschi (now the called the Villa Zileri) was completed in the mid-1703s, and remains in situ.

This pair of paintings first appeared on the art market in 1919, in the posthumous auction of the collection of Georges Hoentschel, owner and proprietor of the of the storied decorating business Maison Leys. Hoentschel took on projects for a number of esteemed clients including the diamond magnate Sir Julius Wernher’s country estate at Luton Hoo, Bedforshire, poet and literature critic Count Robert de Montesquiou, fashion designer Jaques Doucet, among French nobility and world leaders. In 1900 he decorated the pavilion of the Union Centrale des Arts décoratifs for the Universal Exhibition in Paris, in the emerging Art Nouveau style. The pavilion was transported to the United States for the 1904 exhibition in Saint Louis. Hoentschel was also an avid collector of art, including architectural models, medieval decorative arts, and impressionist paintings. A large portion of his personal collection was sold to his friend, the financier John Pierpont Morgan, who in turn gifted the works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We are grateful to Professor Dennis Ton for proposing the attribution on the basis of photographs.