Old Masters and 19th Century Art

Provenance:

The Second Lord Alington, Crichel House, Dorset, England (listed as 'Tiepolo' in a 1920 inventory)

Thence by descent in the family.

Christie's, New York, sale of January 26, 2001, lot 73 (listed as measuring 48 x 35 in.)

Acquired directly from the above sale by the present owner.

Lot Essay:

In this rare pair of paintings by Francesco Zugno the Younger, the artist can be seen combining Old Testament stories with a sense of delicacy, elegance, pastel palette, and eighteenth-century fashion, all of which characterizes Italian Rococo art. One of its greatest practitioners was the famed Venetian artist, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, in whose workshop Zugno entered in 1730 and with whom he worked. Perhaps it is therefore not surprising that in 1920 when in the collection of The 2nd. Lord Alington, the present pair were believed to be by Tiepolo himself. In fact, Tiepolo painted these very subjects: Laban looking for Idols (Palazzo Patriarcale, Venice) and The Finding of Moses (Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh).

In Zugno's paintings, the various figures are treated in a somewhat fanciful manner while maintaining fidelity to the stories, with Rachel seated on her camel's saddle, concealing the idols (teraphim) she has stolen from her father Laban, and with Moses being discovered by the Pharaoh's daughter, saving the child who was hidden by his mother in the bulrushes near the Nile River.