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The Pictorial Wit of Domenico Tiepolo in 2 volumes (Volume I of II) by Sophie Bostock A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History University of Warwick, Department of Art History September 2009 ii The Pictorial Wit of Domenico Tiepolo Contents Acknowledgements v Abstract viii List of Illustrations ix Chapter I: Methodological Problems and Historiography of Divertimento per li Regazzi 1 Formal Qualities of the Divertimento and Summary of the Subject Matter 2 Subsequent History of the Drawings 4 The Chronology of Divertimento per li Regazzi 5 Historiography and Literature Review 8 Methodological Problems of the Divertimento 18 Wider Musing on the Broader Themes of the Divertimento 24 Chapter II: ‘Gio. Batta., and Domenico: Father & Son Tiepolo. Excellent Painters’ 38 Setting the Scene: Eighteenth-Century Venice 42 Giambattista Tiepolo and the Building of an Artistic Dynasty 45 The Tiepolo Family’s Social and Cultural Networks 61 Domenico Tiepolo: Diligentissimo Imitatore d’un Tanto Padre 66 Birth and Early Life 66 Public Work: 1770-1804 72 Private Life: 1770-1804 73 Chapter III: Introducing Pulcinella 81 The Commedia dell’Arte 84 An Introduction to Pulcinella, his Origins and a Panorama of his Life 97 Pulcinella amongst the Commedia dell’Arte Cast 100 iii Pulcinella as Street Entertainer, Carnival Mask in the Burattini and Assistant to Charlatans 103 A Visual Tradition of Depicting Pulcinella 107 Chapter IV: Motifs, Visual and Textual Sources in Divertimento per li Regazzi 118 Repetition of Motifs and their Iconographic Significance in Divertimento per li Regazzi 121 Visual and Textual Sources in Divertimento per li Regazzi 126 Quotations from the Work of Giambattista Tiepolo 126 Quotations from the Work of Pietro Longhi 128 Quotations from the Work of Venetian Painters from the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 129 Quotations from Other Artists 130 Quotations from Textual Sources 132 The Function of Divertimento per li Regazzi 134 Chapter V: On the Playful Qualities of Divertimento per li Regazzi 139 Chapter VI: Old Age and Death 164 A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man 164 Death in Venice 188 Conclusion 201 Divertimento per li Regazzi: A Catalogue of Works 205 Introduction 205 Using the Catalogue of Works 206 Titles 206 Categories Used in Cataloguing the Drawings 206 Location of Drawings 207 iv References 207 Exhibitions 207 Exhibitions Cited 208 Catalogue Raisonné 211 Volume II Appendices Appendix I: Updated Concordance Showing Scholars’ 315 Chronological Interpretations of Divertimento per li Regazzi Appendix II: Thumbnail reproductions of Divertimento per li 318 Regazzi Showing the Chronological Interpretations of the series. Appendix III: Giudici del Proprio: Busta 123, 150, Transcription 334 Appendix IV: Tiepolo Family Trees: (a) GB Tiepolo – Parents and Siblings 366 (b) GB Tiepolo – Wife and Children 367 (c) GD Tiepolo – Wife and Family 368 Appendix V: First Academicians of the Venetian Academy of 1756 369 Appendix VI: Repeated Motifs in Divertimento per li Regazzi 370 Illustrations 372 Bibliography 573 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many institutions and people I would like to acknowledge for their considerable help during the course of writing my thesis. I am grateful to a number of organisations and individuals: to The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, for funding a research trip to Venice in 2006, to Bernhard Rösch at the Residenz, Würzburg, who invited me to climb the scaffolding in the Kaisersäal, during a UNESCO-funded restoration project in 2008; this enabled me to examine more closely the work of Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo than I had ever imagined possible. I thank Professor Nigel Llewellyn, now Head of Research at the Tate, for sparing the time to discuss with me his ideas on the work of Tiepolo and improvisatory musical form. I would also like to thank Anne-Emmanuelle Piton, Documentaliste (XVIIe-XVIIIe) at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Paris, for undertaking some research on my behalf concerning the exhibition of Divertimento per li Regazzi in 1921. Thanks also to Kristel Smentek, Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for sharing her fascinating insights into how eighteenth-century connoisseurs ‘looked’ at images and for a complimentary copy of her groundbreaking article on Pierre-Jean Mariette. I would like to thank paper historian Tomas Stohr of the Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela, for sharing his extensive knowledge of eighteenth-century watermarks with me. I would also like to thank Gianluigi Passuello, Librarian at the Goldoni Museum Library (formerly Librarian at the Palazzo Mocenigo), for helping me to source information on fabrics. I am enormously grateful to Micky White, Independent Scholar and Researcher at the Ospedale della Pietà, Venice, for drawing my attention to a hitherto unpublished archival document on Giambattista Tiepolo. More generally, I would particularly like to thank the staff at The State Archives of Venice, The Historical Archive of the Patriarchate of Venice, The Marciana Library, vi The Correr Museum Library, The British Library, The Warburg Institute Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris for their considerable help. Above all, I would like to thank my supervisor Victoria Avery who has been generous with her time, her many Venetian contacts, and for spending long hours with me in the Venetian State Archives. Victoria bravely, and without hesitation, took me and my project on when the going got tough, and I could not have come this far without her. Within the Department of Art History at Warwick, I also thank Professor Michael Rosenthal and Dr Rosemarie Dias for their kind encouragement of my work when I first presented it to the Department at the annual Graduate Conference in 2008. My thesis has straddled two institutions: my work began at The School of World Art Studies and Museology at University of East Anglia (UEA). I would therefore like to thank Margit Thøfner and John Onians – Margit’s comments on my work in its embryonic stages were encouraging and thought-provoking, and John was always ready to offer advice on aspects of my work, and it was with him that I first learned so much about the art and culture of Venice. I would also like to thank Oliver Logan, now retired, from the Department of History at UEA, for advising me on historical matters and his help with the interpretation of Domenico Tiepolo’s Last Will and Testament. Additionally, I would like to thank Marilisa Castura and Marco Musillo (UEA alumni) for their assistance in the translation and interpretation of Italian texts. I owe much to Professor Adelheid Gealt and Professor George Knox; their seminal work on Domenico Tiepolo has been an inspiration to me, and they have generously and unstintingly shared their considerable experience of and insights into Domenico’s work with me, patiently responding to my many queries over the duration of this project. It was an honour to be invited to the preview and opening of vii their exhibition Domenico Tiepolo: A New Testament at The Frick Collection in New York in October 2006, and to be able to talk with them at that time. I am indebted to Francis Ford, who kindly invited me to Wyndham Place, the home of his late father, Sir Brinsley Ford, for showing me, and talking with me about, his father’s much- loved collection of Pulcinella drawings from the Divertimento. In addition, I would like to thank Catherine Whistler, Senior Assistant Keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum, who has written extensively on both Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo, for responding to my questions on the Tiepolos over the years. I thank my friends for their support, encouragement, tolerance and good- humour – in particular, Christina Bradstreet, Felizitas Ringham, Graeme Smart, Claire Walsh, Beth Williamson, Amelia Yeates. A special mention must go to Graeme Smart not only for his friendship over the years but for proof-reading my thesis for me. Finally, I thank Douglas Bostock for his unfailing support and considerable understanding through the highs and lows of this project. This is for you all, with gratitude. viii Declaration of Originality I declare that this work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original and my own, except as acknowledged in the text. Signed _________________________________________________ Sophie Bostock Dated __________________________________________________ ix Abstract This thesis takes a new approach to Domenico Tiepolo’s (1727-1804), Divertimento Per li Regazzi (c.1795-1804), it is arguably the artists most enigmatic graphic work, which features the commedia dell’arte character Pulcinella. The drawings have hitherto been subject to rigorous connoisseurial analysis. Indeed, in his introduction to ten of the drawings in a catalogue of Italian Eighteenth-Century Drawings in The Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, James Byam Shaw states that this particular series of drawings has now become so famous ‘that it is hardly necessary to add to the literature of the series.’1 In my opinion it would be a great pity if future generations of scholars were discouraged by this remark, for I believe the drawings still have much to ‘tell’ the contemporary art historian and would further benefit from increasingly interpretative readings. Previously, scholars have regarded Domenico Tiepolo as an imitator of his father, Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770), and interpreted the re-appropriation of motifs in the Divertimento as signs of old age and fatigue.