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Allegorical Scene:  A Woman Ruler Triumphant over Discord
Allegorical Scene: A Woman Ruler Triumphant over Discord

Allegorical Scene: A Woman Ruler Triumphant over Discord

Artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696 - 1770)
Dateca. 1760
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 21 1/4 x 13 1/2 inches (53.98 x 34.29 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Gladys Lloyd Robinson
Object number62-51
SignedNone
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 120
Collections
DescriptionStanding at the top of two steps is a crowned female figure wearing a cloak fastened at her left shoulder. She places her right foot on the bare back of a prostrate female figure, lying head first on the steps, and points at her with her right hand. At the right of the crowned figure is a kneeling bearded man who present the woman with a scepter or baton. Behind and to the left are three figures coming in from a vaulted hall at rear; two of them are women and a thrid is a partially visible soldier. At right three other heads - two elderly men and a soldier - appear in front of two flags. The colors of this grisaille sketch are brownish light grays, with the forms outlined and shadowed in black.Exhibition History

Italiaansche kunst in nederlandsch bezit, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, July 1-October 1, 1934, no. 364.

 

Italienische Malerei des 17. Und 18. Jahrhunderts, Nassauisches Landesmuseum, Wiesbaden, May-June, 1935, no. 185.

 

Ausstellung italienische Barockmalerei, Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, May 14-June 15, 1937, no. 127.

 

Paintings from the Collection of Gladys Lloyd Robinson, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June 6-July 5, 1959; Hammer Galleries, New York, October 20-31, 1959; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE, April 24-May 22, 1960; Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD, June-August 14, 1960, no. 3.

 

Gray Is the Color: An Exhibition of Grisaille Painting XIIIth-XXth Centuries, Rice University Art Museum, Houston, October 19, 1973-January 19, 1974, no. 55.

Gallery Label
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was the greatest Venetian painter of the 18th century, celebrated above all for his magnificent and airy fresco decorations. This is a sketch for a larger work, which in this case has not been identified. The political overtones of the subject suggest it may relate to the decoration of a royal or princely palace associated with the crowned figure whose foot restrains the allegorical figure of a vice, most likely Discord. The limited gray palette, sometimes used in preliminary sketches, may have been chosen as a means of working out problems of tonal contrast without the distractions of color, or may even reflect the appearance of the final painting.
Provenance

Etienne Martin, Baron de Beurnonville (1779-1876), Paris, by 1876;

Purchased at his posthumous sale, Tableaux anciens de toutes les écoles composant la très importante collection de M. le Bon de Beurnonville , Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 16, 1881, lot 704, as Composition Allégorique, by Emile Monteaux (1824-1903), Paris, 1881-1884;

His sale, Tableaux anciens et modernes, Dépendant de la Collection de M. M*** , Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 10, 1884, lot 4, as Composition Allégorique;

Madame Joseph Thors, by 1929;

Purchased at her posthumous sale, Tableaux anciens et modernes…Dépendant de la Succession de Madame Joseph Thors, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 10, 1929, lot 31, as Composition Allégorique, by Jules Féral (d. 1949), 1929 [1];

With Kunsthandel P. Cassirer & Co., Amsterdam, by July 1, 1934-at least August 1938;

Purchased from Kunsthandel P. Cassirer & Co., Amsterdam, by Franz Koenigs (1881-1941), Haarlem, probably after August 1938-1941 [2];

Franz Koenigs estate, 1941-1947;

By descent to his daughter, Nela van Eyck-Koenigs (b. 1923), Haarlem and London, by February 5, 1947 [3];

Purchased from van Eyck-Koenigs, through Hector Binney (1919-1986), by Wildenstein & Co., London and New York, stock no. 17495, February 5, 1947-February 20, 1959 [4];

Purchased from Wildenstein & Co. by Gladys Lloyd Robinson (1895-1971), Beverly Hills, CA, February 20, 1959-1962 [5];

Her gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1962.

NOTES:

[1] Jules Féral served as the Tableaux anciens expert for this sale. He was also a private collector and a dealer. According to Laurence Mille, Drouot Documentation, in an email to MacKenzie Mallon, Specialist, Provenance, December 10, 2015, Féral could have been buying for himself or on behalf of an anonymous bidder.

[2] It is possible Koenigs purchased this painting prior to 1938, but records of his purchase do not survive. The painting was lent to several exhibitions in the 1930s, all under Cassirer’s name, including Italiaanische Kunst in Nederlandsch Bezit, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, July 1-October 1, 1934; Italienische Malerei des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Nassauisches Landesmuseum, Wiesbaden, May-June 1935; and Italienische Barockmalerie, Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, May-June 1937. The painting was designated as for sale in the 1937 exhibition catalogue, but did not sell. According to Christine Koenigs, Franz Koenigs’ granddaughter, although Koenigs may have exhibited works from his collection anonymously or through a dealer intermediary such as Cassirer, it would not have been in keeping with his collecting activities to offer a painting for sale through an exhibition. Since this painting was listed for sale in the 1937 Galerie Sanct Lucas exhibition catalogue, Koenigs most likely did not yet own it at the time of this exhibition. The painting was returned by Galerie Sanct Lucas to Cassirer on August 26, 1938, according to Austrian export records, Bundesdenkmalamt Wien Archiv, Ausfuhr 1938-1409. We are grateful to Christine Koenigs for providing information on her grandfather’s ownership of the painting and its provenance within her family.

[3] Franz Koenigs’ children divided his estate in 1947-1949. This painting came to his daughter Nela, who was married to Robert van Eyck.

[4] According to Wildenstein & Co., in an email to MacKenzie Mallon, Specialist, Provenance, December 14, 2020, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

[5] This painting was offered for sale by Robinson at Italian and Other Primitives, Renaissance & Baroque Paintings, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, October 19, 1960, lot 23, as Allegorical Scene: Triumph of the Church, but failed to sell.

Published References

Catalogue des tableaux anciens de toutes les écoles composant la tres importante collection de M. Le Baron de Beurnonville (Paris: May 9-14, 6, 1881), 434.

 

Catalogue de tableaux anciens et modernes dépendant de la collection de M. Monteaux (Paris: Hotel Drouot, March 10, 1884), 5.

 

Eduard Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo: Ihr Leben und ihre Werke: Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (Hamburg: H. v. Clarmanns Kunstverlag, 1910), 218.

 

“Succession de Madame J. Thors: Objets d’art et d’ameublement,” Gazette de l’Hotel Drout, no. 65 (June 4, 1929): unpaginated.

 

Catalogue des Tableaux Anciens et Modernes …dépendant de la Succession de Madame Joseph Thors (Paris: Hotel Drouot, June 10-11, 1929), 17, (repro.).

 

Italiaansche kunst in nederlandsch bezit, exh. cat. (Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1934), 112, (repro.). 

 

Lionello Venturi, “Nell’esposizione d’arte italiana ad Amsterdam,” review of Italiaansche kunst in nederlandsch bezit, L’Arte 5 (1934): 499.

 

Guglielmo Matthiae, “In margine all’esposizione d’arte italiana ad Amsterdam,” review of Italiaansche kunst in nederlandsch bezit, Rivista del R. Istituto d’Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte 5 (1935): 226, 230n55.

 

Raimond Van Marle, “La pittura all’esposizione d’arte antica italiana di Amsterdam,” review of Italiaansche kunst in nederlandsch bezit, Bollettino d’Arte 28 (1935): 404.

 

Italienische Malerei des 17. Und 18. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat. (Wiesbaden: Nassauisches Landesmuseum, 1935), 17, (repro.).

 

Ludwig von Baldass et al., Italienische Barockmalerei, exh. cat. (Vienna: Galerie Sanct Lucas, 1937), 43, (repro.).

 

Lili Froehlich-Bume, “An Exhibition of Italian Baroque Painting,” review of Italienische Barockmalerei, by Ludwig von Baldass et al., Burlington Magazine 71 (1937): 93-95, (repro.).

 

“Paintings from the Collection of Gladys Lloyd Robinson,” Bulletin of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor 17 (June 1959): unpaginated, (repro.).

 

Peter Pollack et al., Gladys Lloyd Robinson Collection, exh. cat. (New York: Hammer Galleries, [1959]), unpaginated, (repro.).

 

Italian and other Primitives Renaissance and Baroque Paintings…From the collections of the estate of the late Lillian S. Timken, New York, sold by the order of the Legatees, Gladys Lloyd Robinson, Beverly Hills, California, John J. Astor, New York, and other owners (New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, October 19, 1960), 22, (repro.).

 

Antonio Morassi, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G.B. Tiepolo (London: Phaidon Press, 1962), 36, (repro.).

 

Guido Piovene and Anna Pallucchini, L’opera complete di Giambattista Tiepolo (Milan: Rizzoli, 1968), no. 286, p. 133, (repro.). 

 

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 196, 488, 589. 

 

Giorgio Vigni, Disegni del Tiepolo, 2nd ed. (Trieste: Le editorial libraria, 1972), 40, 100-101. 

 

J. Patrice Marandel et al., Gray is the Color: An Exhibition of Grisaille Painting, XIIIth-XXth Centuries, exh. cat. (Houston: Rice University Art Museum, 1973), 90, 91, 165n34, (repro.). 

 

Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, vol. 10 (Paris: E. Gründ, 1976), 180.

 

Aldo Rizzi, Giambattista Tiepolo: Disegni dai Civici Musei di Storia e Arte di Trieste, exh. cat. (Milan: Electa, 1988), 222. 

 

Yves Bonnefoy et al., Tout l’oeuvre peint de Tiepolo (Paris: Flammarion, 1990), no. 295, p. 135, (repro.). 

 

Aldo Rizzi, Giambattista Tiepolo: Zeichnungen aus den Städtischen Museen für Kunst und Geschichte in Triest, exh. cat. (Hannover: Niedersächsischen Landesgalerie, 1990), 28. 

 

Massimo Gemin and Filippo Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo, I dipinti: Opera completa (Venice: Arsenale editrice, 1993), no. 16, p. 505, (repro.).

 

Elliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 451-456, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.


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