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The Empire of Flora

ca. 1743

Tiepolo was the preeminent Italian painter of the eighteenth century. His style is at its most exuberant in this representation of Flora, Roman goddess of flowers and spring. In an inviting garden, under a bright blue sky, Flora rides into the scene on a chariot pulled by winged putti. This picture’s patron was Count Francesco Algarotti, an envoy to the Dresden court of Augustus III. Algarotti commissioned this painting and its pendant (today in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg), as gifts for Count Heinrich von Brühl, chief minister to Augustus. The fountain in the background alludes to a public sculpture that Brühl had commissioned, and, writing to Brühl, Algarotti drew a flattering comparison between the transformations brought about by Flora in ancient myth and those brought about by his correspondent in modern Dresden: “The influence of Flora . . . transforms the most savage places into delightful precincts.”

Artist: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Title: The Empire of Flora
Date: ca. 1743
Place of Creation: Venezia
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 28 1/4 x 35 in. (71.8 x 88.9 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Accession Number: 61.44.19

As provided by the Kress Foundation: https://www.kressfoundation.org/kress-collection/repository/fine-arts-museums-of-san-francisco:

Heinrich, Graf von Brühl (d. 1763), Dresden [1].

Baron Karl Heinrich von Heineken, Dresden, in 1758;

His sale, Remy, Paris, 13 February 1758, no. 25.

Johnan Gottlieb Stein, Berlin;

His sale, Berlin, 1763, no. 8.

Baron Étienne Martin de Beurnonville, Paris, France (d. 1881) by 1880;

Beurnonville Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 9 May 1881, no. 699;

M. George, Paris [2].

[Robert Lebel, New York];

Sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation on 6 February 1952;

Gift to Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1961

[1] According to the Getty Provenance Index, the painting was commissioned by Francesco Algarotti for Brühl.
[2] Annotated copy of sales catalogue, National Gallery of Art Library.
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 1880, no. 168.

Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, December 10, 1961–February 4, 1962. “Art Treasures for America,” no. 93.

Cedar Rapids, IA, Cedar Rapids Art Center, November 25, 1966–January 5, 1967. “Inaugural Exhibition,” no cat. no.

Tokyo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 10–June 14, 1992; Fukuoka Art Museum, July 1–26, 1992; Osaka Municipal Museum, August 8–13, 1992; Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art, September 23–October 25, 1992. “European Masters from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” no. 6.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, September 8–December 12, 1993. “Giambattista Tiepolo: Master of the Oil Sketch,” no. 28.

Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, February 5–April 24, 1994; Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, May 22– August 14, 1994; Seattle Art Museum, September 15–November 20, 1994; Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, December 17, 1994–March 4, 1995. “A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection,” no. 48.

Allentown, PA, Allentown Art Museum, October 16, 2011–January 15, 2012. “Shared Treasures: The Legacy of Samuel Kress,” no cat. no.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, August 8–December 31, 2017; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, February 2–May 20, 2018; Boston. Museum of Fine Arts, June 17–October 8, 2018. “Casanova; The Seduction of Europe,” no. 21.
Pillet et Dumoulin, Catalogue des tableaux anciens de toutes les écoles, composant la très importante collection de M. le baron de Beurnonville, Auction catalogue, Paris: Pillet et Dumoulin, May 9–14, 16, 1881, pg. 431, lot 699.

Molmenti, Pompeo, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: La sua vita e le sue opere, Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1909, pg. 247.

Sack, Eduard, Giambattista und Domenico Tiepolo, Hamburg: Clarmann, 1910, pg. 121, fig. 112.

Molmenti, Pompeo, Tiepolo: La vie et l'œuvre du peintre, trans. H.L. de Perera, Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie., 1911, pg. 190.

Posse, Hans, “Die briefe des Grafen Francesco Algarotti enden sächsischen Hof und seine Bilderkaufe fur die Dresdner Gemäldegalerie 1743–1747,” Jahrbuch Der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 52 (1931), pgs. 21, 39, 49.

Suida, W.E., The Samuel H. Kress Collection, San Francisco: M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 1955, pg. 18, repr. pg. 19.

Larsen, Erik, “The Samuel H. Kress Collection at the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco,” Apollo 61, no. 364 (June 1955), pg. 175.

Neumeyer, Alfred, “The Samuel H. Kress Collection of the M.H. De Young Museum in San Francisco,” The Arts Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1955), pg. 278.

Comstock, Helen, “The Connoisseur in America,” The Connoisseur 136, no. 547 (September 1955), pg. 71.

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Levey, Michael, “Tiepolo’s ‘Empire of Flora,” The Burlington Magazine 99, no. 648 (March 1957), pgs.89–91, figs. 34–35.

Garberi, Mercedes Precerutti, “Di alcuni dipinti perduti del Tiepolo,” Commentari Rivista di Critica e Storia Dell’Arte 9, no. 2 (April–June 1958), pg. 114n13.

Levey, Michael, “Two paintings from the Algarotti Collection,” The Burlington Magazine 102, no. 687 (June 1960), pgs. 250, 252, fig. 30, 253, 254.

Morassi, Antonio, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of Giambattista Tiepolo, London: Phaidon Press, 1962, pg. 47, fig. 354.

European Works of Art in the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Berkeley, CA: Diablo Press, 1966, pg. 156.

Pallucchini, Anna, L’opera completa di Giambattista Tiepolo, Milan: Rizzoli, 1968, repr. pg. 108, 109, no. 154.

Thomas, Hylton A., “Tasso and Tiepolo in Chicago,” Museum Studies (Art Institute of Chicago) 4 (1969), pgs. 40–42, fig. 15, 46n26, 48n28.

Frongia, M.L., “Giacomo Leonardis incisore di riproduzione,” Arte Veneta 25 (1971), pgs. 225–227.

Fredericksen, Burton B. and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre–Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North America Public Collections, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972, pg. 197.

Stampfle, Felice and Cora D. Denison, Drawings from the Collection of Lore and Rudolf Heinemann, exh. cat., New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973, pg. 63.

Shapely, Fern R., Paintings from the S. H. Kress Collection, Italian Schools XVI–XVIII Century, London: The Phaidon Press, 1973, pgs. 144–145, fig. 283, no. K 1890.

Pigler, Andor, Barockthemen: eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1974, pg. 89.

Richardson, John, and Eric Zafran, eds., Master Paintings from The Hermitage and The State Russian Museum Leningrad, exh. cat., New York: M. Knoedler & Co., 1975, pg. 36, repr., under entry no. 6 by David Lomax.

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Morse, John D., Old Masters Paintings in North America, New York: Abbeville Press, 1979, pg. 255.

Shapley, Fern Rusk, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, National Gallery of Art, vol. 1, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1979, pg. 455.

Vetrocq, Marcia E., Domenico Tiepolo’s Punchinello Drawings, exh. cat., Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Art Museum, 1979, pg. 29, pg. 154, under entry for S42.

Haskell, Francis, Painters and Patrons, Art and Society in Baroque Italy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pgs. 353–354.

Levy, Michael, Painting in Eighteenth–Century Venice, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980, pgs. 26–27

Suida-Manning, Bertina, “A Panorama of Italian Painting,” Apollo 111 (March 1980), pgs. 192–193

Spike, John T. “New York: Domenico Tiepolo’s Punchinello Drawings at The Frick Collection.” The Burlington Magazine 122, no. 925 (1980), pg. 282.

Nakayama, Kimio and Shuji Takashina, Nu Féminin dans l’Art: Vol. 2, Mythologie: Déesses Gracieuses et trois Grâces, Tokyo: Shueisha, 1981, repr. pg. 38.

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Suzuki, Tokiko, Yoshiyuki Morita, and Yoshiki Ono, Itsuraku No Rokoko, Meiga Eno Tabi, 18seiki, 1993, fig. 5–8.

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Ilchman, Frederick, et. al., eds., Casanova: The Seduction of Europe, exh. cat., Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2017, pgs. 302–303, no. 21.

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Social Sharing

Provenance

Exhibition History

Bibliography

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Composition of Right Foot, 19th-20th century

A mature man preparing to make love to a young girl, ninth scene from the series Handscroll for the Sleeve (Sode no maki), ca. 1780-1790

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