Tiepolo in Helsinki - The Exhibition of Discoveries

By Inna Rogatchi ©

It might seem as an artificial question: what new and original can bring an exhibition of super-classic artist whose works are extremely well-known and who belong to the Pantheon of those who are the pillars of civilization? As it happened, life can still bring nice surprises, even under the siege of covid-19 pandemic, and some museums and the people who are working there are able to produce remarkable exhibitions, containing not one, or two, but several gems in it. Tiepolo: Venice in the North at Sinebrychoff Art Museum in Helsinki is the exhibition of that category. 

 

Tiepolo: Venice in the North exhibition. Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery. © Photo: Hannu Pakarinen.

 

Tiepolo in the North

 

This exquisitely designed and presented exhibition ( 17.09.2020 - 10.01.2021 )  has another meaningful mark: it is the first monographic exhibition of Tiepolo in Finland.  The elegant culture event also marks the 250th anniversary of the great Venetian master’s death. The works of both, Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico, are presented there.

 

 

It is worth to note that there is a special reason for bringing the works of both Tiepolos to one of the most appreciated museums of Finland, the part of the Finnish National Gallery. This reason is a special phenomenon of outstanding popularity and fame of Tiepolo namely in the countries of Northern Europe which occurred yet during his lifetime and immediately after that, from the second half of  XVIII century onward.

 

That ‘Tiepolo-mania’ had happened  due to the  two main factors: a sweeping popularity of a Grand Tour among the aristocracy and upper class in Russia and Scandinavian countries, and the sizes of the outstanding palaces which were erected at the time and which architects and the officials responsible for their decorations were seeking to decorate with a huge-size canvases produced with masterly and expressing the symphony of colours which was the Tiepolo’s trade-mark.

 

Yet another important factor was Tiepolo’s established fame in both Wurzburg court of Prinz Bishop Karl Philip  in Germany and Madrid court of Charles III in Spain. In both places which were notable spots of that day Europe, Giambattista Tiepolo, with help , in Madrid, of his son Giandomenico, has created the artworks which were regarded at the time almost as the eight wonder of the world, and which still be a remarkable art creations till now. The ceilings of New Residenz , Kaisersaal and a giant entrance and staircase in Wurzburg, and ceiling of the throne hall in the Royal Palace in Madrid has made the name of Tiepolo not only largely known far beyond Venice and Italy, but also has made him increasingly sought-after master among the Russian and North European aristocracy and upper class which were busy with building their new giant palaces.

 

Troya series by Giandomenico Tiepolo. Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery. © Hannu Pakarinen. 

 

As always, subjective reasons have played a powerful role, as well. The Italian master architects, like Quarengi, Rossi, and the others,  who were busy with appearing palaces all over St Petersburg in Russia and who did enjoy much influence there with regard to their art taste and preferences, loved Tiepolo. They believed that his masterly in execution, harmonious in colour, and unprecedentedly dynamic art would make the interiors of the palaces built by them to sing and to fly, and that is exactly what they were telling to their clients who did listen carefully and appreciated what they had been told by the supreme architects of the day.

There is one thing when an artist is popular, and Italy is the country with the highest artist competition in between them from the Renaissance until 1930s. And there is another thing when a popular artist is working for the kings, more so, in the leading and various courts of Europe - as it was in the case of Tiepolo. That circumstance has made him a very fashionable artist at the Russian Imperial court and among the Russian aristocracy, and to some, lesser extent, among the Swedish Royal circles.

 

To the credit of the Russian Imperial and aristocratic society, it should be also noticed that they were attentive and did follow the opinion of their mostly German-educated advisers on art, art collections and art acquisitions, and that they did love and appreciate the art, in particular, Italian art. Quite many of them did live in Italy or visited the country, and the tradition of love and appreciation of art in general and Italian art in particular has become the one of the most strong and lasting traditions among the cultured and educated Russian public, especially its upper class.

 

From this point of view, it is only logical that the organisers of the Tiepolo exhibition at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum have approached their Russian colleagues from the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art at the early stage of the exhibition preparation. The result of that important cooperation is stunning.  

 

Beginning

 

In an interesting unfolding of events, the initiation of this very notable exhibition goes back to 2016 when Dr Ira Westergard, the chief curator of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, along with her research assistant Kersti Tainio, were starting to work on their  research project examining the provenance history of the both Tiepolo’s works which belonged to the  Museum.  That story itself is a completed art detective episode worth a separate narrative.  

 

“ We quickly realised that in a future exhibition we wanted to focus on Tiepolo in Northern Europe, and therefore we contacted both Dr Irina Artemieva at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and Dr Magnus Olausson at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and discussed our ideas with them. They were both enthusiastic and supportive about the project from the start”. 

 

The work in the centre of their provenance research, The Greeks Sacking Troy ( 1773-1775)  by Giandomenico Tiepolo  provided a clear focal point towards the emerging understanding of the future exhibition’s concept. What’s more, the work, known as modelli in technique, oil sketch on canvas, is the  one of the series which belongs to a series of three works, with the other two belonging to the National Gallery in London. In planning was the idea to show all of them together, which would be for the first time in two hundred years.   

 

Giandomenico Tiepolo. The Triumph of Pulcinella/A carnival Scene. SMK National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen.

  

Another significant fact that prompted the future exhibition also happened in 2016 when the Sinebrychoff Art museum acquired a  double drawing by Giambattista  Tiepolo, the Study of a Female Head, and Study of a Male Head from the one of art galleries in Milan. This specific drawing is exceptional because it is one of the few remaining drawings that can be securely connected to the lost frescoes decorated Palazzo Archinto in Milan. The palace was destroyed due to the bombing during the Second World War.  

  

International Dream-Team 

 

It would not be an exaggeration to mention that the special exhibition in Helsinki has become a beautiful fruit of very positive multilateral cooperation of several leading art world institutions. What is also important and valuable is that the exhibition, and particularly the articles in the accompanying catalogue, present new findings in the field of Tiepolo research. It really is a miracle that Sinebrychoff, being a small museum with limited resources, had been able to conduct such a world-level exhibition, twice so, in the middle of the pandemic. The Sinebrychoff Art Museum team, and the Tiepolo exhibition’s curator Dr Ira Westergard do deserve our huge appreciation for their focused and successful efforts. 

 

At this exhibition, the Sinebrychoff Art Museum has hosted the Tiepolo works from the State Hermitage ( Russia), the UK National Gallery, London, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts ( Moscow, Russia) , Musei Civivi di Venezia ( Venice, Italy), Swedish Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, SMK National Gallery of Denmark,   Stockholm University Art Collection, Murom History and Art Museum in Russia, and Finnish National Library.

 

The curator of Tiepolo: Venice in the North exhibition Dr Ira Westergard has told me that ‘it was really the case of fantastic cooperation with a number of the leading art institutions and the team of extraordinary colleagues”, including Dr Irina Artemieva, well-known Russian expert on Italian art and senior art historian  from Hermitage, Dr Giuseppe Pavanello, the don of Italian art historians who has made important research on Tiepolo influence on Antonio Canova, Dr Alberto Craievich, director of the Ca’Rezzonico Museum  Dr Magnus Olausson, the head of collections at the Swedish Nationalmuseum, Dr Rainer Knapas, expert on the history of Monrepos special collection at the Finnish National Library There is no wonder that the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki has become the one of the gems not only in the cultural life of Finland, but it is very noticeable in the European context of the events in 2020.

 

Giambattista Tiepolo. Cupids with Grapes/Allegory of Autumn. The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. 

 

Despite all the barriers, the team at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum   that was working on the first monographic Tiepolo exhibition in Finland with many of their good friends in the leading art institutions of Europe, did it, and they did it not simply well. They did it extraordinarily.

 

Exposition: exquisite aesthetics

 

The presentation of the Tiepolo exhibition at Sinebrychoff museum is exquisite. Its design is very modern and deeply aesthetic. It magnifies a viewer’s attention and it presents the Tiepolo’s masterpieces as precious pearls inside a rich beautiful jewelry box, if one can imagine the box made of ultramarine walls, and masterly lighten inside Sinebrychoff Art Museum. Rarely one can see such a beautifully created exposition among the present-day art exhibitions.

 

Discoveries

 

The exhibition presents 24 oil works of both father and son Tiepolos, more than 30 of their both drawings, and the unique album known as The Catalogo consisting of over 200 etchings of Giambattista Tiepolo’s and his sons Giandomenico and Lorenzo.  

 

 In the most enriching way, the exhibition in Helsinki turned out to be filled with serious art discoveries. I categorise them in my review of this rare exhibition.

 

Artistic discovery: Murom painting

 

On the cover of the exhibition’s catalogue and its poster, we are enjoying a truly graceful art work, now attributed to Giambattista ( and previously to his son) , Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist (the date is unknown).  The elegant, masterly colouristic decision with ultramarin cloth placed by Tieopolo in the position that commands the picture in an unusual way, being in the low corner of it, is striking. A small goldfinch placed by the artist in the hand of a child is immensely human and vivid at the same time. And the Virgin’s face superbly painted by Tiepolo with emphatic gentleness and ultimate beauty is powerfully attractive. It is a beautiful, special, speaking to everyone work of art.

Giambattista Tiepolo. Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist. Murom;’s History and Art Museum.Murom, Russia.

 

Believe it or not, but this gem of the world’s culture is seen at the exhibition in Helsinki for the first time ever, in any exhibition outside Russia at all, since the time of its acquisition which was most likely during the winter of 1858, thus over 160 years ago. 

 

The unbelievable story of Virgin with a Small Goldfinch is that back in 1858, at the time of the peak of the Grand Tour popularity, famous Russian count Alexei Uvarov was travelling on the route with his young wife Praskovya during their honeymoon trip. It was not just another pair of Russian aristocrats.

 

The husband, German-educated count Alexei, who was 18 year elder than his wife, was the son of the Russian minister of education, and himself the one of the fathers of entire Russian archaeology studies, the founder of Russian Imperial Archaeological Society, and also the founder of the famous Historical Museum, right in the centre of the Red Square in Moscow.

Count Alexei Uvarov. Murom’s History and Art Museum.

 

The wife, young countess, was born countess Praskovya Scherbatov, was the niece of famous countess Maria Naryshkin, the principal lover and mother of children of Russian Emperor Alexander I. Praskovya herself was quite likely the prototype of Kitty Scherbatski in Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace. As it is known from his diaries,  the great Russian writer did like the young countess Praskovya Scherbatov very much and noted vivacity and elegance of her mind, which is a rare top-mark to a woman at the time, doubly so from such demanding observer as the Count Lev Tolstoy.

 

Konstantin Makovski. Portrait of the Countess Praskovya Uvarov. 

 

Praskovya Scherbatov was educated by the top authorities in culture in Russia, her music teacher was nobody else, but younger brother of famous Artur Rubinstein and close friend of Piotr Tchaikovsky Nicolay Rubinstein, her art teacher was famous artist Nikolay Savrasov, and her literature teacher was leading Russian authority prof.Buslaev.

 

There is a beautiful and quite well known sort of vintage roses selected by legendary French botanist Jacques-Julien Margottin, the person who gave us the Bourbon roses, Comtesse Ouvaroff. Most likely, it was a gift by Count Alexei to his young wife, as it is known that after concluding the Grand Tour, the newly married couple on the way home went to Paris and met there with Margottin. The rose selected by him for Countess Praskovya is still in use, and it is beautiful.

 

Rose The Comtesse Ouvaroff selected by Jacques-Julien Margottin ca 1872.

 

This woman has left a very serious trace in the Russian culture, because after the early death of her husband count Alexei, she did maintain, supported and inspired the work of the Russian Imperial Archeological Society, and thus the very development of the field of archaeology in Russia  practically single-handedly for many years, until the Bolshevik revolution, after which he managed to emigrate to former Yugoslavia where she died in 1924 being 84. She was professor of many Russian and some foreign universities and was one of the most enlightening figures in Russia in the second half of the XIX century.

 

So, back in the winter of 1858, this very special and finely educated , recently married couple travels on their honeymoon along the route of the Grand Tour, and buys that great Tiepolo works most likely in Venice. Upon the return of Count Alexei Uvarov and his wife Countess Praskovya to Russia, the great work of Tiepolo went to the wall of the Uvarovs’ family estate Krasnaya Gorka ( Red Slope) in  Karacharovo, near Murom in Russia. After the  Bolshevik revolution, the priceless art collections of Uvarovs had been nationalised and moved in its entirety, almost, to the only cultural establishment in nearby Murom town which has become the Murom’s History and Art Museum and which owns that great Tiepolo ever since 1918.

 

Once great Uvarovs estate had been the Russian state  property for over a century by now, with many decades of them being the property of the Russian defence ministry. The conditions of that once great architectural and cultural establishment is utterly pitiful, sadly.

 

Tiepolo’s Virgin  was on the Murom’s museum walls ever since the counts Uvarovs art collection was moved there after the nationalisation back in 1918. Incredibly, it has never been exhibited, neither inside, or outside Russia. To the huge credit of Dr Irina Artemjeva , it was she who in the way of collaboration with the Sinebrychoff Art Museum has found the extraordinary artwork there, and made it possible for the Tiepolo’s masterpiece to be exhibited in Helsinki, the first time for at least 160 years.

 

 No wonder that this special work has become the title-work of the exhibition and that it has been exhibited in Helsinki in an empathic way, similar to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

 

Tiepolo: Venice in the North exhibition at Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki. (C)Photo: Hannu Pakarinen.

  

Historic discovery: Tiepolo etching album

 

Another unprecedented gift to the lovers of arts visiting the Tiepolo exhibition at Sinebrychoff museum is laying there in a special glass box, being well lit.  Inside the vitrin is the world treasure which belongs to the Finnish National Library and which had never been exhibited either. When the leading Italian experts were visiting Helsinki working on the Tiepolo exhibition and saw and examined that volume at the Finnish National Library, they literally could not believe their eyes.

 

The Catalogo Tiepolo album in the vitrin at the exhibition at Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery. © Photo: Hannu Pakarinen.

 

The treasure is known as The Catalogo and it is the first edition of the volume of all known Tiepolo’s family’s etching which his son Giandomenico has inherited after his father’s death in Madrid in 1770.  When Giambattista died in Madrid in 1770, his son Giandomenico , upon his return to Venice, Giandomenico decided to publish this collection of etchings. We know of four different versions of this collection, four editions of the Catalogo, published between 1774 and 1778. The one presented at the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki is an example of the first edition, meaning that the quality of the etchings is superb.  

 

Not only this edition in Helsinki has been preserved incredibly well and is in an ideal condition, according to the recent examination by the leading Italian experts, but as it happens, its existence in Helsinki was unknown even to the experts outside Finland until very recently. When Alberto Craievich and Giuseppe Pavanello visited the National Library in Helsinki and were able to look at the album with their own eyes, they were astonished.

 

Those who are aware of the kinds of collections belonging to the Finnish National Library and the history of how these gems of the civilisation had made its way to this noble institution would not be that surprised though.  It contains many significant family collections and unique documents. 

 

 

Lorenzo Tiepolo, after Giambattista Tiepolo. Triumph of Venus. Reproduction from the album Catalogo di varie Opere(...), owned by The National Library of Finland, Helsinki.

 

The case of the first edition of the Tiepolo Catalogo is the one of them. It belongs to the Monrepos collection, the famous treasure of Barons Nicolay family. That family was well known in Russia from the last third of the XVIII century through the early XX century. The first ‘Russian’ Nicolay  ( there were branches of that  illustrious family also in France, England and Germany), Ludwig Heinrich, was poet and professor of literature in his native Strasbourg. It was there at the Strasbourg University where he was noted and got acquainted with the creme a la creme of the Russian nobility, due to the fact that in the second half of the XVIII century, at least the third of the students at that famous university were children of the Russian high society. The erudite Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay was soon invited by the famous Russian aristocrats to teach their children in Russia, and soon he was recommended as the teacher and private secretary to future Paul I, the son of Catherine the Great.

 

 

Johan Lampi. Portrait of Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay. Monrepo collection, Vyborg.

 

He was very close to future Emperor Paul, and later on was appointed by him as the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.   The Nicolay’s  library was legendary, he was fervent bibliophile who personally knew Voltaire and many other luminaries of the French Enlightenment, and  who was awarded the title of baron rather late in his life, by Emperor Joseph II, but on the same day with Goethe, and by the same Imperial edict.

 

Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay was among twenty core members of the entourage of Grand Duke Paul and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna during the couple’s travelling on the Grand Tour in 1871-1872 which was a visible international event. It is believed that it is during that tour Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay, the refined connoisseur of books and arts, had acquired The Catalogo, which has become one of the treasures of his incredible library that was so large that it occupied a special building in their Monrepos estate near Vyborg .

 

Four generations later, in 1916, in the midst of the Great War,  the last male in the line of the barons Nicolay, Paul Ernest Nicolay, the great grandson of the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and private secretary of Emperor Paul I, decided that in order to save their family’s incredible treasure of books and arts, he would need to relocate it to Helsinki. He did it by donating it to the library of the Imperial Alexander University, the predecessor of the Finnish National Library.  Paul Ernest was nervous about possible fire in the big wooden building hosting the famous library, in the nervous and unstable atmosphere of the Great War.

 

It was a truly providential decision of the last representative of the Nicolay family.  Paul Ernest died three years after, in 1919. His sisters were still living at Monrepos, which was in Finland, until 1943. Since the Second World War, the estate, its famous gardens are still in Vyborg, now on the Russian side of the border.

 

The unique Tiepolo Catalogo from barons Nicolay’s library known as Monrepos Special Collection at the Finnish National Library is exhibited at the exhibition at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum for the first time since the time when it has been acquired by Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay back in 1781-1782. Just this fact alone among several highlights of the exhibition in Helsinki earns it a gold medal for public cultural achievements.  

 

No wonder that the Catalogo has caused so high interest among the Italian art experts that it has been suggested that it would be worthy of a facsimile publication.

 

Conceptual discovery: The series of the Trojan Horse

 

The Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki has become also the premises in which the famous series by Giandomenico Tiepolo on the Trojan Horse has become exhibited together, as the artist has created them in the series, for the first time in over 200 years, since 1817.

 

What has happened in Helsinki in 2020 with respect to unifying the parts of Tiepolo’s son series is the real-life brilliant historical art detective. And it is so good and interesting that I am going to dedicate a separate essay to its many twists, leads, moves, places and people involved. It is really worth it. 

 

As it has been known to the experts, three modelli, mid-sized oil sketches on canvas, picturing scenes in Troy, were created by Giandomenico after the death of his father in 1770. The series has been dated to the early years of the 1770’s. Oil sketches, which Tiepolo family’s workshop was famed for, was a handy medium to deal art with, due to its size and easy shipping, and it had been very popular among collectors (for the artist making sketches in oil was a normal working procedure before painting the finished painting). at the time both inside and outside Venice. Due to Tiepolo’s popularity in Russia in late XVIII-early XIX century, the Italian art-dealers tried their luck there,  both with monumental, big paintings, and, in addition to that, there was certainly also a market for oil sketches as well.

 

The one of such dealers who tried, successfully, his luck at the Russian Imperial Court, Niccolo Leonelli, was so enthusiastic about it that he decided to focus his activities there. Leonelli, however, had to wait until the crisis after Napoleon's war on Russia would calm down, thus delaying his appearance there until 1814 when he arrived in Russia loaded with art from Italy, including a large number of works by Tiepolo the son. As it happened, the Russian harsh climate was too much for Italian person to sustain, and Leonelli fell ill and died two years after his arrival.

 

A huge auction of the art belonging to Leonelli was organised in St Petersburg the year following his death, in 1817.  At least two copies of the auction catalogue still exist.  American art historian Burton Fredricksen published his research on the collection of Tiepolo paintings from that auction in 2012 and Dr Irina Artemieva has researched the catalogue further.

 

The experts have noted that in the catalogue of the auction selling the treasures that Niccolo Leonelli brought with him to Russia, the three modellis depicting Troy were listed together.

 

Troya series at the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki. Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery. © Hannu Pakarinen. 

 

To make the long story short, two parts of the series were bought at the auction in St Petersburg in 1817, most likely, by the well-known English artist George Dawe who was working at the Russian Imperial Court. His big commission at the time was 329 portraits of Russian generals who distinguished themselves during the Napoleon invasion, for the Military Gallery in the Winter Palace.

 

Eventually, the two modellis by Giandomenico Tiepolo, The Building of the Trojan Horse, and The Procession of the Trojan Horse,  made their way to the National Gallery in London where they were present ever since the early 1900s.

 

The destiny of the third part of the series is nothing short of a strong thriller. It was left in Russia, and after the Bolshevik revolution, had become a commodity, among many other pieces of superb art all over the country, which the Soviet authorities were dealing in the scheme to bring much-needed funds into their treasury. The adventures of that particular work by Tiepolo’s son has brought it eventually to Helsinki where it went for public auction in 1996.

 

Giandomenico Tiepolo. The Greeks Sacking Troy. Finnish National Gallery/Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki.

 

The trick here is that at the moment, it was not traded as Tiepolo. The work of relatively small size, 41 x 55 cm, was attributed by the Hagelstam auction house in Helsinki as the work of ‘an unknown Italian master, XVIII century’. The auction house traded it in the way and with the attribution with which it has got it from the previous private owner, the family of a former Finnish diplomat.

 

Ira Westergard who was working at the time as an assistant at the Sinebrychoff Museum, and she remembers the purchase very well. The chief curator at the museum, who was responsible for the purchase at the auction was Kai Kartio, nowadays director of the Amos Rex art museum in Helsinki. The museum acquired this artwork by an “unknown master” for the insignificant sum of 8000 Finnish marks, equivalent to about 2000 euros.

 

When the chief curator at the museum started to work on the authenticity and authorship of their recently acquired work, he was able to establish very soon, in a matter of a couple of months, that the museum was extremely lucky to acquire the authentic work by Giandomenico Tiepolo.  

 

At this current exhibition featuring both father and son Tiepolos in Finland for the first time in monographic exhibition, the exhibition’s curator Dr Ira Westergard was able to materialise the idea and dream that her colleague, previous chief curator of the Sinebrychoff Museum Kai Kartio have had after the authorship of their Tiepolo has been affirmed  - to exhibit them all together.

 

It took 24 years, but in the Autumn 2020, at the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki, quite substantial  break-through in public art has been  achieved, with all three parts of the Giandomenico Tiepolo's Troya series being exhibited together for the first time since 1817 where they were seen at the famous Leonelli auction  in St Petersburg. This is an outstanding museum achievement.

 

Giandomenico Tiepolo. The Procession of the Toryan Horse in Troy. The National Gallery, London.

 

The Sinebrychoff  museum is very grateful to the director of the National Gallery in London, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, and the experts of the museum, for their wholehearted support of this exhibition.

 

Interestingly, at the time of the acquisition, Gabriele Finaldi was, in fact, the curator of the Venetian paintings at the National Gallery, and he was among the first to congratulate the Sinebrychoff Art Museum on the new acquisition. Already back then, the idea to show the three Trojan Horses together was expressed. It just took a few years to realise this idea. The public, privileged to see a wonder of art in the way it has been planned by Giandomenico Tiepolo, is enjoying it with great interest.

 

Rarity discovery: Recent Sinebryhoff acquisition

 

At Tiepolo: Venice in the North exhibition, Sinebrychoff also demonstrates the Museum’s recent acquisition, a double-sided drawing showing the artist’s studies of female and male heads. It is believed that the works are related to the frescoes that Tiepolo was commissioned to produce for Palazzo Archinto in Milan. Extremely sadly, the gorgeous frescoes of that Palazzo have been destroyed during the Second World War when Milan was bombed by the American military aviation in 1944-1945.

 

Tiepolo’s works are truly unlucky with this regard, we also know that his splendid work which has been liked and bought personally by Catherine the Great and which has been taken by the Empress to her summer retreat in Oranienbaum near St Petersburg, does not exist any longer.

 

Giambattista Tiepolo. Study of a Female Head ( recto). Finnish National Gallery/Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki.

 

 

Sinebrychoff Museum has acquired Tiepolo's double-drawing in white and red chalk in 2016 from an art gallery in Milan. The work has been rated so highly in the museum world that it has been included in the important exhibition at the Frick Collection in New York, Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of Palazzo Archinto ( April - July 2019).  At that rare exhibition which purpose was to restore our knowledge about splendid works by Tiepolo, which were completely and tragically destroyed, there were only five works loaned by the international art institutions, the museums of Vienna, the UK, Trieste, and Sinebrychoff. Among those five works, there were only two surviving drawings by Tiepolo for his frescoes in Palazzo Archinto, one of them belonging to the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. In Finland, at their monographic exhibition on Tiepolo, this rarest drawing has been exhibited for the first time now, after the important exhibition in New York.

 

* * * *

 

The exhibition in Helsinki has a magic effect: it attracts you to its splendid art works of father and son Tiepolos in a magnetic way. This exhibition created in such superb modern and attractive style reminds a good, masterly tale: the more you hear it, the more you would like to hear. The more you are looking at both Tiepolos’ works on the exquisite display at the elegant Sinebrychoff Museum in Helsinki, the more you would like to see it. Such is an unmistaken effect of Venetian art, with their masters’ magic of light, and dynamic of movement. And Tiepolo was undoubtedly the one of the most illustrious among the great masters of Venice, following in his heart the magic of Veronese - as in his turn, unparalleled Antonio Canova did follow in his heart the unique feeling of a figure which he has learned from his most favourite artist Tiepolo many decades later.

 

In bringing such worthy, special, full of discoveries exhibition to Helsinki, in the midst of covid pandemic, being able to coordinate all the logistics with ten major international art institutions, to publish a great two catalogues, all this earns our deep gratitude to the Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery team.

 

It is really a pity that the exhibition won’t be able to travel. I am sure that it would be greatly appreciated at any place in the world.

 

But as a very good personal  and long-standing gift from this truly superb exhibition, I so very often am looking at a soothingly beautiful Virgin with a Small Goldfinch about which neither I, nor many of my very well educated colleagues had any idea about until a  couple of months ago.

 

When an exhibition is able to provide a person with something very personal that is going to be cherished for a long time, it always is a success. Sinebrychoff Art Museum , with their team’s knowledge, aspirations, expertise  and taste did succeed in their first monographic Tiepolo exhibition in Finland all over 20 000 times corresponding to the number of people who were able to visit the museum under the covid restrictions. This is the inspiring story of real success of a great art and its loving understanding - which matters a lot at any time, twice so at the difficult times of covid that has distorted our lives in a painful and deprived way.

 

November-December 2020

Helsinki

© Inna Rogatchi