Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Angelica and Medoro

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
1696-1770

Angelica and Medoro

ca. 1740-1745
15 1/8 x 11 3/8 inches (384 x 287 mm)
Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk.
2017.242

Thaw Collection.

Notes
In this scene from Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando Furioso, the pagan princess Angelica carves the name of her lover, the young knight Medoro, into the bark of a tree. The artist depicted the subject in a number of drawings and at least one fresco, and various sketches by his son Domenico, also now in the Morgan, are clearly derived from the elder Tiepolo's various interpretations of the theme. This sheet--so finished that it may have been conceived as an independent work of art--is stylistically akin to other drawings of the early to mid-1740s. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Inscriptions/Markings
Watermark: Letters "PA" over trefoil on a stick.
Associated names
Saxe-Altenburg, Duke of, former owner.
Delacre, Maurice, 1862- former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
Bibliography
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection", 2017. Exh. cat., no. 365, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, no. 40.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department