GIAMBATTISTA TIEPOLO (Venice, 1696 - Madrid, 1770) St. Anthony of Padua Oil on canvas, 120X61 cm Provenance: Milan, Giuseppe Beltrami collection Milan, private collection (1949) Bibliography: P. Molmenti, G. B. Tiepolo, his life and works, Milan 1909, p. 341 (as Domenico Tiepolo) E. Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo, Ihr Leben und Hire Werke, Hamburg 1910, p. 312, n. 94 (as Domenico Tiepolo, but judged similar to the works of Aranjuez) P. Molmenti, Tiepolo. La vie et l'oeuvre du Peintre, Paris 1911, table 251 In Molmenti and Sack's pioneering studies, this small altarpiece was assigned to Giandomenico Tiepolo when the painter looked at his father's latest Spanish creations. However, the comparison between the two scholars was based on a photographic reproduction and the painting has not been studied since then. Its reappearance therefore allowed Giorgio Fossaluzza a critical reconsideration of the painting, proposing to trace it back to Giambattista's catalogue, recognising a date of execution in the fourth decade, i.e. at the time when the author evolved most clearly. These are the years in which Tiepolo completed the frescoes in Udine and the canvases in the Palazzo Dolfin in Venice, now in Vienna, New York and St. Petersburg - and it is in this phase that the work is placed, characterised by a loose pictorial conduction and a peculiar scenic construction, the same that we recognise in the frescoes and altarpieces of this period, whose compositional articulation becomes accentuatedly vertical. Comparisons can be made here with the altarpiece in Pieve di Sacco, the Adoration of the Child kept in the Sacristy of the canons of St. Mark's Basilica, the Education of the Virgin in Santa Maria della Fava and the altarpiece created for the Paduan church of San Prosdocimo now housed in the Venice Academy. Compared to these works, however, the canvas under examination presents a successful compositional firmness in emphasising the centrality of the figure and her meditative attitude when receiving the wreath of lilies. Nevertheless, the work shares with the creations of the 1930s a peculiar agility of drafting and a more conscious chromatic sensitivity, recognisable in the rosy drapery that envelops the Child and in the blue fabric that stands out in the centre of the composition, an artifice that balances and enlivens the scene with its mottling. As for the typological comparison, the Saint's square and tense face, skilfully constructed by chiaroscuro gradation, still recalls the works of the 1920s but, above all, indicates a precise comparison with the Saint Roch in the Von Pannwitz collection in Bennebrock and the Cicogna collection in Milan (Gemin, Pedrocco 1993, pp. 306 cat. 184, 309 cat. 196). We thank Giorgio Fossaluzza for the attribution. Reference bibliography: M. Gemin, F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo. I dipinti. Complete works, Venice 1993, ad vocem F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo: gli esordi, in Giambattista Tiepolo, exhibition catalogue edited by A. Bayer, K. Christiansen, G. Nepi Scirè, F. Pedrocco, G. Romanelli, Milan 1996, pp. 37-51 G.M. Pilo, Per la giovinezza di Giovan Battista Tiepolo, in Arte Documento, 10, 1996, pp. 168-173