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| Female Satyr with Tambourine, Child and a Putto, c. 1740-42 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Italian, 1696-1770 Oil on canvas, oval (one of a pair) 23-5/8 x 37-3/4 in. (60.0 x 95.9 cm) Norton Simon Art Foundation M.1980.06.2.P © 2012 Norton Simon Art Foundation On view Tiepolo’s luminous frescoes and ceiling paintings, inhabited by soaring gods and allegorical figures, earned him great fame. His fantasia, or imagination, was no less ambitious in the terrestrial zone. This oval painting was likely part of a decorative cycle found in an aristocratic Venetian palazzo. The canvases are related to Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, a masterpiece of Italian literature that tells a tale of forbidden love and of the battle between good and evil, during the Crusades. The oval paintings, originally four in number, served as overdoors. Satyrs, half human and half goat, do not appear in the original epic poem, but their beastly nature may function as pictorial metaphor for the immoral and self-indulgent passions of two of the poem’s characters, Rinaldo and Armida. View Provenance |
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