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Description: | This painting forms part of an ambitious decorative cycle of eight canvases, now dispersed, made in Venice. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo led the way in this form, and in 1757 he executed a decorative cycle in the Villa Valmarana based on Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata. The subject for the Ferens picture is taken from the same Tasso source, as were a series of engraved illustrations in a 1745 edition of twenty scenes by the Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Pittoni. The composition of this painting is adapted from the Pittoni engraving, thus identifying Sophronia. The question of which of the Guardi brothers painted part or the whole of the cycle has been the subject of debate by art historians for forty years. The current agreement is that the Sophronia canvas was painted by one artist in a consistent style. The two much larger canvases from the same series held at Washington's National Gallery could possibly be by more than one hand, suggesting that the Guardi brothers worked together on this ambitious project (Wright, 2002, pp. 98-99). | Subjects: | history (Sophronia and the Saracen King Aladine) | Source: | Vads | Creator: | Artist: Guardi, Antonio (Italian painter, 1699-1760) Æ Guardi, Francesco (Italian painter, 1712-1793) | Identifier: | http://www.vads.ac.uk/large.php?uid=8714... | Go to resource |
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