COLLECTION NAME:
The AMICA Library
Record
AMICA ID:
CMA_.1999.5
AMICA Library Year:
2000
Object Type:
Drawings and Watercolors
Creator Name:
Tiepolo, Giovanni Domenico
Creator Nationality:
European; Southern European; Italian
Creator Role:
artist
Creator Dates/Places:
1727 - 1804
Gender:
M
Creator Name-CRT:
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
Title:
The Disrobing of Christ
Title Type:
Primary
Title:
La spoliazione di Cristo
Title Type:
Foreign
View:
Full View
Creation Date:
c. 1785-1790
Creation Start Date:
1785
Creation End Date:
1790
Materials and Techniques:
pen and brown and black ink, brush and black, brown and red-brown wash, over black chalk; framing lines in brown ink
Dimensions:
Sheet: 47.9cm x 38.2cm, Image: 46.1cm x 36.2cm
AMICA Contributor:
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location:
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number:
1999.5
Credit Line:
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Inscriptions:
signed, lower left, in brown ink: Dom° Tiepolo f
Provenance:
Luzarches, Tours; Camille Rogier; Christie's, New York, 13 January, 1993, no. 62, sold for $35,200; purchased by Stephen Mazoh & Co., Inc., New York; Martin Kline, Rhinebeck, New York
Context:
Giandomenico Tiepolo, one of the important Venetian fresco painters of the 18th century, is best known today for narrative drawings that join scenes from daily life with historical or invented stories. During the 1780s and 1790s he produced several series of narrative drawings, including the so-called Large Biblical Series, from which this drawing comes. This impressive series of over 260 large vertical sheets relates stories from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha, and the Acts of the Apostles.The Disrobing of Christ (Station X of the Via Crucis, or Stations of the Cross) combines Giandomenico's ability to concentrate on the essence of a historical scene while incorporating peripheral characters that add a touch of contemporary reality. The artist enlivened the composition with a distant landscape and the diagonal sweep of the cross that leads to the central figures. He also placed one of the executioners on his knees in front of Christ (setting the executioner apart by a means of a colorful brown wash), adding a potent, ironical moment to the event. In this subtle manner Giandomenico implied the impact of Christ's presence and the religious significance of his death.
Related Image Identifier Link:
CMA_.1999.5.tif
