Allegory of the Planets and Continents

1752

Oil on canvas, 73 × 54 7/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A six-foot oil sketch handed to a prince-bishop as the proposal for a ceiling: the Rococo decorator selling the idea before painting it.

Look at

The centre is nearly empty pale sky; figures crowd the four edges and are drawn as if seen from below, so the view from the staircase floor is already built in.
Thin washes, figures flicked in with a few strokes and the canvas tone left showing: a sketch, not a finished picture.
Warm cream and gold gather round Apollo's glow; the rest is blue-grey with small notes of red.

Shown to Carl Philipp von Greiffenklau on 20 April 1752; Tiepolo was at the Würzburg Residenz from December 1750 to November 1753.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1977.

Oil sketch: a small, quickly painted version made to plan a large work or to show a patron.