The Glorification of the Giustiniani Family

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

1783 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

Having assisted his father in the completion of a landmark ceiling fresco in Würzburg (see the large oil sketch nearby), the younger Tiepolo elaborated on its composition thirty years later for the ducal palace in Genoa, Italy. With plunging perspective, he depicts a patriarch of the ruling Giustiniani family atop a staircase, kneeling before a personification of Liguria, the region surrounding Genoa. At left stands a female personification of the Greek island Chios, which the family once controlled. At right, the masts of ships and exoticized figures allude to the family’s commercial enterprises in Asia Minor.

Artist

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Date

1783

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1913