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Imagine it above your head, then follow the winged figure blowing two trumpets across the pale sky toward the red banner below.
Tiepolo painted this small, quick sketch for a ceiling, as its shaped outline shows, though it matches none of his finished decorations. Carried out full size overhead, designs like this seem to open the ceiling like a great window onto figures floating among clouds. He used such sketches to test forms and colors and to show clients how a scheme would look.
oil on canvas · Framed: 51.5 x 43 x 6.5 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Rococo
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Sketch for a Ceiling
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696–1770)
- Date
- 1750s
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 51.5 x 43 x 6.5 cm (20 1/4 x 16 15/16 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 41 x 34 cm (16 1/8 x 13 3/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Holden Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.