Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Scherzi di Fantasia: Magician Pointing Out a Burning Head to Two Youths
and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, 1998.113 · The Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)View original →
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Scherzi di Fantasia: Magician Pointing Out a Burning Head to Two Youths

1750–60

Current Collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Medium
etching
Dimensions
39 × 27.1 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-209001

A scherzo is a musical composition made up of little phrases, with implications of playfulness. Tiepolo's Scherzi are improvised scenes of magicians, philosophers, soldiers, old men in turbans, and shepherds who consult horoscopes, skulls, skeletons, and snakes among altars, ruins, and ancient bas-reliefs. The transitory nature of life, the vanity of human pursuits, and direct confrontation with death, are the recurring themes. The eerie mood of the prints reflect the preoccupation of 18th-century Venice with magic, superstition, and witchcraft. Light was Tiepolo's essential means of expressi…

Provenance

and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, 1998.113

Registry history

  • 1750–60 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — prints

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