Tiepolo's Circumcision of Christ goes on tour from Bassano del Grappa to Venice

The painting depicting the Circumcision of Christ by Giambattista Tiepolo from the Museo Civico in Bassano del Grappa has arrived at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice: it will be on public display until Feb. 26, 2023.

“This is the first, significant result of the agreement signed last February 2022 by the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Civic Museum of Bassano,” explains Gallerie dell’Accademia director Giulio Manieri Elia, “created with the aim of fostering the mutual exchange of works of art, contributing to the promotion and enhancement of the collections, as well as to the planning of common cultural projects and scientific dissemination.”

As part of this, the Venetian museum will lend the Transportation of the Holy House of Nazareth, a canvas executed by Tiepolo in 1743, to the major exhibition Io, Canova. European Genius, organized to mark the bicentenary of the Possagno sculptor’s death at the Museo Civico di Bassano.

In its place, in Room 2, visitors will find the Circumcision of Christ. This exchange will be an opportunity for an unprecedented comparison with the Tiepolesque works on display at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, particularly those in Room 2 and Room 6. This is a small permanent exhibition that the museum dedicates to the great pictorial genius of the 18th century, capable of restoring, even chronologically, a parable of his Venetian production.

Difficult to date, Bassano’s canvas is likely to be understood as a model for a major decoration perhaps never executed and in any case not known. With the Tiepolesque models and sketches it has in common speed of execution, with effective touches of color and vibrant luministic effects. Although critics seem to disagree in dating the Circumcision between the 1920s and the 1940s, its presence in the museum is likely to offer more elements of stylistic comparison, particularly with the works of the early 1930s exhibited at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, from the San Prosdocimo altarpiece to the monumental Chastisement of the Serpents, both of which are on display in the renovated exhibit in Room 6.

Image: Giambattista Tiepolo, Circumcision of Christ (c. 1730-1735; Bassano del Grappa, Museo Civico)

Tiepolo's Circumcision of Christ goes on tour from Bassano del Grappa to Venice

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