Italian Paintings in the Norton Simon Museum with Nicholas Penny: Giambattista Tiepolo

In celebration of the Museum’s new collection catalogue Italian Paintings in the Norton Simon Museum: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, author Nicholas Penny narrates a series of videos exploring a single painting in depth, and reveals some of the discoveries he made during the course of researching the book.

In this episode, Penny looks at Allegory of Virtue and Nobility by Giambattista Tiepolo from ca. 1747–48. Originally conceived as a ceiling panel for a Venetian palace, the monumental shaped canvas showcases the artist’s illusionistic skill in depicting clouds, drapery and allegorical figures as if they are hovering above us. Penny also traces the fascinating ownership history of the painting, from its original context in Italy to an equally remarkable manor house in England, before finding its way to Pasadena.