Apparition of the Angel to Hagar and Ishmael

Artist Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727 - 1804)

Formerly attributed to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696 - 1770)

Dateca. 1751

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 33 1/16 × 41 5/16 inches (83.98 × 104.93 cm)
Framed: 42 7/8 × 52 3/16 inches (108.9 × 132.56 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number30-23

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionThree quarter-length figures are grouped closely together in the foreground. To the left, a winged angel in profile is dressed in a silvery pink robe with a yellow sash and ocher cape. The angel turns his head to his left and points to his right with his left hand. The other two figures occupy the right half of the composition. A young woman (Hagar) leans to her right toward the angel, her right hand with open palm extending to the bottom of the composition. She wears an orange headpiece and a rust-colored dress with a gold and beige striped bodice. Next to Hagar is a young boy (Ishmael) who leans against the bosom of Hagar. He wears a blue jacket. In the right middle ground is a tree; a mountainous terrain and blue sky can be glimpsed between the angel and Hagar.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exhibition of Italian Painting of the Sei- and Settecento, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, January 22-February 5, 1930, no. 47.

Opening Exhibition, Wichita Art Association, KS, September 1935, no cat.

Special Loan Exhibition of Venetian Painting of the Eighteenth Century, City Art Museum of St. Louis, March 1-31, 1936, no. 39.

Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by the Two Tiepolos: Giambattista and Giandomenico, The Art Institute of Chicago, February 4-March 6, 1938, no. 21.

Opening Exhibition, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, April 8-June 3, 1951, unnumbered.

Art Tells the Story, The Denver Art Museum, March 1-April 27, 1953, hors cat.

George Washington’s World, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, January 16-February 14, 1954, no. 167.

The Century of Mozart, The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO, January 15-March 4, 1956, no. 102.

Tenth Anniversary Exhibition, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, April 30-May 31, 1961, no cat.

The Tiepolo’s: Painters to Princes and Prelates, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL, January 8-February 19, 1978; Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts, March 19-May 7, 1978, no. 91.

Scenes from the Hebrew Scriptures, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 2-September 18, 1983, no. 21.

Birmingham Museum of Art 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, UK, April 8-June 3, 2001.

Gallery Label

Hagar, depicted here between her son Ishmael and an angel, was the servant of Abraham and his wife Sarah, who was infertile. To preserve the family line, Sarah agreed that Hagar should bear Abraham's child. Hagar bore Ishmael, and soon thereafter, Sarah was also able to conceive and give birth to a son, whom she and Abraham called Isaac. Fearing for her son's rights, Sarah forced Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael to the wilderness. The two outcasts are pictured here receiving assistance from an angel. Giovanni Domenico was the son of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Giovanni Domenico spent much of his career assisting his father, but here his originality is shown in the use of strong contrasting diagonals to enhance the emotional effect of the subject.

Provenance

Princess Marianne of The Netherlands (1810-1883), Villa Mattei (Celimontana), Rome and Schloss Reinhartshausen, Rheingau, by 1857-1883;

By descent to her son, Prince Albrecht of Prussia (1837-1906), Schloss Reinhartshausen, Rheingau, 1883-1906;

Inherited by his cousin, Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1862-1929), 1906-at the latest 1927;

Purchased from Prince Heinrich by A. S. Drey, Munich and New York, by 1927-1930;

Purchased from Drey by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1930.

Published References

Edward Sack, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo: Ihr Leben und ihre Werke: Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts (Hamburg: H.v. Clarmanns Kunstverlag, 1910), 107, 192, (repro.).

Adolfo Venturi, Studi dal vero (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1927), 403-05, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Written Attestations from D. von Hadeln, A.L. Mayer and Herman Voss, November-December 1928, NAMA Curatorial Files, as by Giambattista.

Art News 28 (December 21, 1929): 8, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Royal Cortissoz, “Notes on Some Old Masters: Spanish, Italian, and British Painting,” Herald Tribune (May 4, 1930): 8-9, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

“Nelson Museum Puts $500,000 More Into Art,” Herald Tribune (May 20, 1930): 15, as by Giambattista.

Art News 28 (May 31, 1930): 4, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Carlyle Burrows, “Letter from New York,” Apollo 12 (July-December 1930): 297-98, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Exhibition of Italian Painting of the Sei-and Settecento, exh. cat. (Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, and Morgan Memorial, 1930), 18, as by Giambattista.

"Pictures Bought by Nelson Trust Will Make Kansas City a Mecca,” Art Digest 5 (May 15, 1931): 7, (repro.).

“Like Helmeted Minerva, Springs Kansas City’s New Art Museum,” Art Digest 8 (December 1, 1933): 28, (repro.).

“The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Special Number,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 29, 36, (repro.), as by Giambattista

Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, vol. 3 (New York: E. Wyhe, 1933), unpaginated.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 22. (repro.), as by Giambattista.

M. Rogers, “Seventeen Painters of Eighteenth-Century Venice in an Important Loan Exhibition at St. Louis,” Art News 34 (February 29, 1936), 7, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

“Special Loan Exhibition of Venetian Painting of the Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of the City Art Museum of St. Louis 21, no. 2 (March 1936): 8, 32, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Art News 36 (December 11, 1937): 8, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Daniel Catton Rich, Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by the Two Tiepolos: Giambattista and Giandomenico, exh. cat. (Chicago: 1938), 25, 66, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Wolfgang Stechow, “The Two Tiepolos,” review of Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by the Two Tiepolos: Giambattista and Giandomenico, by Daniel Catton Rich, Art in America 26 (April 1938): 84, as by Giambattista.

Helen Comstock, “The Connoisseur in America: Tiepolo in Two Exhibitions,” review of Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by the Two Tiepolos: Giambattista and Giandomenico, by Daniel Catton Rich, Connoisseur 101 (May 1938): 259-60, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Ulrich Middeldorf, “Eine Tiepolo-Austellung in Chicago,” review of Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by the Two Tiepolos: Giambattista and Giandomenico, by Daniel Catton Rich, Pantheon 21 (1938): 139, 145-46, (repro.) [repr. Ulrich Middeldorf, Raccolta di scritti: That is, Collected Writings, vol. 1 (Florence: Studi per edizioni scelte, 1979-80), 332, (repro.).], as by Giambattista.

Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler, 33^rd ed. (Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1939), 153, as by Giambattista, with the possible assistance of Domenico.

Gallery News (William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art; Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts/ The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) vol. 7, no. 6 (March 1941): 4, as by Giambattista.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 32, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 48, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Helen Boswell Howard, Catalogue of the Opening Exhibition, exh. cat. (Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Museum of Art, 1951), 17, as by Giambattista.

George Washington’s World, exh. cat. (Houston: Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, 1954), unpaginated, as by Giambattista.

John D. Morse, Old Masters in America (New York: Rand McNally, 1955), 156, as by Giambattista.

“The Century of Mozart,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) vol. 1, no. 1 (January 15-March 4, 1956): 32, by as by Giambattista.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 75, (repro.), as by Giambattista.

Mercedes Precerutti-Garberi, “Asterischi sull’attività di Domenico Tiepolo a Würzburg,” Commentari 11 (1960): 272-73, 278.

Antonio Morassi, A Complete Catalogue of the Painting of G.B. Tiepolo (London: Phaidon Press, 1962), 14.

Guido Piovene and Anna Pallucchini, L’opera complete di Giambattista Tiepolo (Milan: Rizzoli, 1968), 136.

Adriano Mariuz, Giandomenico Tiepolo (Venice: Alfieri, 1971), 31-32, 118, 120, 152, (repro.).

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 540-41, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 72].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 198, 255, 589.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 142, (repro.).

Edward Weeks, ed.,The Tiepolos: Painters to Princes and Prelates, exh. cat. (Alabama: Birmingham Museum of Art, 1978), 31, 53, 72, 103, (repro.).

George Knox, “Tiepolo Paintings at Birmingham,” review of The Tiepolos: Painters to Princes and Prelates, by Edward Weeks, ed., Burlington Magazine 120 (1978): 189.

John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 256, as by Giambattista.

George Knox, Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo: A Study and Catalogue Raisonné of the Chalk Drawings, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), no. P78, pp. 293, 300.

Cinq années d’enrichissement du patrimoine national, 1975-1980: Donations, dations, acquisitions, exh. cat. (Paris: La Réunion, 1981), 65.

Scenes from the Hebrew Scriptures (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 9, 23, (repro.).

Yves Bonnefoy et al., Tout l’oeuvre peint de Tiepolo (Paris: Flammarion, 1990), 138.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933-1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 25.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 188, (repro.).

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 92, 130-131, 134, 208n23, (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), 17, 429-35, (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.