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oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Hermann Sthamer collection, Hamburg, no. 12 (his label on the reverse of the stretcher);
His sale, Cologne, J.M. Heberle, 8-9 October 1883, lot 123 (as Giambattista Tiepolo);
Acquired by the father of the present owner during the early 20th century;
Thence by descent.
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

E. Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo, Hamburg 1910, p. 190, no. 335, reproduced fig. 179 (as by Giambattista Tiepolo);
A. Morassi, A complete catalogue of the paintings of G.B. Tiepolo, London 1962, p. 13 (as by Giandomenico Tiepolo);
A. Mariuz, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Venice 1971, pp. 111 and 117 (as present whereabouts unknown; as by Giandomenico Tiepolo);
B. Klesse, Katalog der Italianischen, Französischen und Spanischen Gemälde bis 1800 im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne 1973, p. 124, under no. 1070 (as by Giandomenico Tiepolo).
CATALOGUE NOTE

This painting of The Adoration of the Shepherds by Giandomenico Tiepolo was last seen in public when sold at auction in Cologne in 1883. It was formerly in the collection of the eminent collector Hermann Sthamer, Hamburg, where it hung with its original pendant representing The Adoration of the Magi (oil on canvas, 42 by 56 cm.), a painting today in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne (see fig. 1, reproduced in Mariuz, under Literature, p. 117, plate 47).

Both works were long considered to be by Giambattista Tiepolo, until rightfully restored to Giandomenico by Morassi (see Literature) in 1962 (presumably on the basis of an old black and white photograph). This opinion was endorsed by Mariuz in 1971 (see Literature), who proposed a dating of circa 1751-53, noting stylistic similarities with the modelletti for the overdoors in the Kaisersaal Residenz, Würzburg, datable to 1751.

In both the present work and The Adoration of the Magi the artist has adopted a similar overall mise-en-scène. The architectural settings are broadly repeated in both works, with the opening onto a distant view on the right of the scenes and the motif of the broken cartwheel repeated lower left. The figure groups are similarly composed, the crouching figure of the shepherd in the present scene replaced by a kneeling Magus in its pendant. Although absent in The Adoration of the Magi, the sculpture-like figure of the woman bearing a basket on the right of the scene, employed by the artist as a framing device, recurs in Giandomenico's painting of Il Ciarlatano, listed by Mariuz as in a private collection, Rome (ibid., reproduced plate 198).

As in so many of his works, Giandomenico has borrowed a design from his father, in this case in the pose of the shepherd crouching before the Madonna and Child, which derives (albeit in reverse) from Giambattista's painting of Abraham visited by Angels, today in the collection of the Duquesa de Villahermosa, Pedrola, a red chalk drawing for which is in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (see Giambattista Tiepolo 1696-1996, Venice, Museo del Settecento Veneziano Ca' Rezzonico, exhibition catalogue, 6 September - 8 December 1996; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24 January - 27 April 1997, pp. 334-5, cat. no. 55, reproduced).