Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, originally Giambattista Chiepoletto 1696-1770
Italian decorative painter

He was born in Venice, and was educated by an unknown artist named Lazzarini. His work is to be found in palaces and churches throughout Europe. Early examples include the Labia Palace at Venice and frescoes at Udine, Milan and Bergamo. His Perseus and Andromeda (c.1730) for the Palazzo Archinto, Milan, destroyed in 1943, survives as a study in the Frick Collection, New York. In 1750 he began his most important decorative scheme, in the Archbishop's Palace at W�rzburg. An Allegory with Venus and Time (National Gallery, London), part of a ceiling in the Contarini Palace, Venice, also belongs to this period (1750s). In 1761 Charles III of Spain called him to Madrid to work in the new Royal Palace. The work, however, was still incomplete at his death. Tiepolo's compositions are full of movement and energy, as for example in Antony and Cleopatra at the Labia Palace, creating a sense of awe by the use of dramatically exaggerated foreshortening and subtle chiaroscuro. He was a superb draughtsman, and his influence on Francisco Goya and on all subsequent decorative painting was enormous. The Courtauld Institute in London owns a rich collection of his work, including Allegory of the Power of Eloquence (c.1725), St Aloysius Gonzaga in Glory (c.1726), The Adoration of the Magi (c.1726), The Martyrdom of St Agatha (c.1734) and a series of religious paintings of 1767.