Metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics

Artist:Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid) and Workshop
Artist: and Girolamo Mengozzi (called Colonna) (Italian, Venetian, 1688–ca. 1766)
Date:1760
Medium:Fresco, transferred to canvas
Dimensions:146 x 57 7/8 in. (370.8 x 147 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Grace Rainey Rogers, 1943

Like the other frescoes in this gallery, this allegorical figure of Metaphysics, identified by the inscription on the base of the feigned statue, is from the Palazzo Valle-Marchesini-Sala in Vicenza. The simulated architecture, foreshortened from a viewing point in the center of the room, was carried out by a specialist in this type of work, Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna, who collaborated with Tiepolo on a number of commissions. The frescoes were probably commissioned by Count Giorgio Marchesini, and their iconography may reflect his particular interest in Freemasonry. They were detached from the palace about 1900.

Catalogue Entry
Metaphysics, together with three other allegorical figures—Arithmetic (43.85.14), Geometry (43.85.15), and Grammar (43.85.16)—is a detached fresco from the Palazzo Valle-Marchesini-Sala in Vicenza. Enea Arnaldi’s 1779 guidebook of the sights of Vicenza describes in the palace of Count Giorgio Marchesini: "the Gallery . . . painted in fresco by Girolamo Colonna for what concerns the architecture, and by Giovan Battista Tiepolo for the figures . . . there is furthermore a room with groups in painted bronze, with four overdoors". The four detached frescoes have been wrongly believed to have come from a villa on the Brenta canal (Morassi 1962), or a villa near Vicenza (Pallucchini 1968), or Villa Valier Bembo, known as La Chitarra (Precerutti Garberi 1968, Zeri and Gardner 1973). Following a restoration campaign in Palazzo Valle-Marchesini-Sala between 1983–86, traces of the detached frescoes were found in the Gallery, firmly establishing the provenance of the paintings and linking them to the description in Arnaldi’s guidebook.
The frescoes in Palazzo Valle-Marchesini-Sala were commissioned in 1760 by Giorgio Marchesini (Chignola 2004). Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painted the figures, possibly with the assistance of his son Giovanni Domenico, and of Francesco Zugno. Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna, instead, produced the trompe l’oeil architectural background. The main Gallery was decorated with an Ionic colonnade, which included figures in grisaille: the four MMA liberal arts, Mars with a Greyhound, Venus and Cupid (private collection, Turin), a Head, usually described as of Bacchus, but probably of Flora (previously in the collection of Héli de Talleyrand at the Pavillion Colombe, Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt; sold at Christie’s, Paris, November 26, 2005, no. 349, and now in a private collection, Venice), and possibly also the Two Allegorical Figures with an Obelisk (John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota). The ceiling of the Gallery was frescoed with a roundel representing Virtue and Abundance, also at the MMA (43.85.12). The paintings were removed from the Gallery before 1909, but most of the architectural setting by Mengozzi Colonna survives in the room.
The allegorical figure of Metaphysics is identified by the inscription (METAFISICA) on top of the pedestal, painted to resemble African marble. It was originally on the right wall of the Gallery, paired with Grammar, and across the room from Arithmetic and Geometry. Giorgio Marchesini was a well-known Mason, and his palace was used as a Masonic temple in the late 1730s. It has been suggested (Menegozzo 1990) that the entire cycle of frescoes by Tiepolo at Palazzo Marchesini may have a Masonic significance.
Another four detached frescoes of Virtues (MMA 43.85.21, 43.85.22, 43.85.23, 43.85.24) and four overdoors with the Continents (MMA 43.85.17, 43.85.18, 43.85.19, 43.85.20) are said to come from other rooms in the same palace.
Xavier F. Salomon 2011

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