Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Hyacinth
1730/35
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
274.3 × 137.2 cm (108 × 54 in.); Framed: 303.6 × 174 × 12.7 cm (119 1/2 × 68 1/2 × 5 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16434
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In this altarpiece, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo conceived the traditional subject of the Virgin and Child with interceding saints as if the two figures have miraculously appeared on an altar in a light-filled vision, surrounded by the golden clouds of heaven. The infant gives Saint Dominic a rosary; the saint had founded a preaching order that was closely associated with the use of the rosary as a spiritual exercise. The embroidered decorative scenes on the altar cloth depict the mysteries of the ...
About the Artist
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo · 1696–1770
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) stands as the greatest decorative painter of eighteenth-century Europe, a Venetian master whose luminous frescoes and dynamic compositions defined the Rococo era's aesthetic zenith. Born in Venice on March 5, 1696, to a modest shipping merchant family, Tiepolo's extraordinary talent transcended his humble origins to establish him as the most sought-after artis...