Virtue and Abundance

Virtue and Abundance

Virtue and Abundance

Artist:Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, Venice 1696–1770 Madrid) and Workshop
Date:1760
Medium:Fresco, transferred to canvas
Dimensions:Diameter 114 in. (289.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Grace Rainey Rogers, 1943

Like the other frescoes in this room, this large roundel is from the Palazzo Valle-Marchesini-Sala in Vicenza. It simulates a sculptural relief and decorated the ceiling of a long gallery, whose lateral walls were embellished with the allegorical figures of the liberal arts. It depicts the two allegorical figures of Virtue, on the left, and Abundance, with the cornucopia, on the right.

Catalogue Entry

The roundel with Virtue and Abundance is a detached fresco from the ceiling of the Gallery in the Palazzo Valle-Marchesini-Sala in Vicenza. Grisaille images of four liberal arts—Metaphysics (43.85.13), Arithmetic (43.85.14), Geometry (43.85.15), and Grammar (43.85.16)—from the same room, are also currently at the MMA. 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 fresco has 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 painting and linking it 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). Virtue and Abundance was at the center of the ceiling. The paintings were removed from the Gallery before 1909, but most of the architectural setting by Mengozzi Colonna survives in the room.
The painting simulates a sculptural relief, with two figures. On the left is the winged allegory of Virtue, holding a lance in her left hand, and with a sun on her breast. The same figure appears in other works by Tiepolo, such as the Glorification of the Barbaro Family (MMA 23.128). On the right is Abundance with a cornucopia. She may also be identified as Fortuna, and the image could be related to the Latin motto: "Virtute duce, comite Fortuna" (With Virtue in command, Fortune follows). 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

Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org