Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770) was the last great painter of the Italian Rococo and the finest fresco artist of his century. Born in Venice, he trained under Gregorio Lazzarini and absorbed the legacy of Tintoretto and Veronese. By age twenty he was already working on church ceiling commissions. His palette lightened over time, and his compositions grew increasingly airy and theatrical, with figures floating in luminous skies surrounded by billowing clouds and classical architecture.

Tiepolo's fame spread across Europe. From 1750 to 1753, he worked for Prince-Bishop Carl Philipp von Greiffenklau at the Würzburg Residence in Germany, painting the largest fresco in the world over the grand staircase designed by Balthasar Neumann. The ceiling shows Apollo surrounded by allegorical figures representing the four continents. In 1761, Spain's King Charles III summoned him to Madrid to decorate the Royal Palace. There he faced opposition from the rising Neoclassicist Anton Raphael Mengs, whose austere style was overtaking the Rococo. Tiepolo died in Madrid in 1770. His sons Domenico and Lorenzo assisted him throughout his career. A contemporary called him "the most famous of the virtuosi," and Michael Levey later described him as "the greatest decorative painter of eighteenth-century Europe." His easel paintings and oil sketches can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery in London, and the Museo del Prado.