Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000319A Spring Shower
Also known as: Punchinello in a Rainstorm; Walking in the Rain
About the Artwork
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, an important Venetian fresco painter of the 18th century, is best known today for his highly finished historical drawings that ingeniously incorporate details from daily life. In his series of 104 drawings known as Divertimento per li Regazzi (Entertainment for Children), he featured the Punchinello character from the Italian tradition of popular theater, a picaresque clown figure with a hooked nose, hunched back, and bloated belly. The character appears repeatedly in Tiepolo's sprawling narrative that rehearses the social mores of late 18th-century Venice through genre scenes of daily life, comic misadventures, and pathetic tragedies. In this enigmatic scene, one of nine sheets from the Divertimento at the CMA, the artist depicted a group of seven figures from the back as they wander aimlessly amid a shower that literally drips down the white paper. Domenico's characteristically tremulous lines and broad, simple washes of brown ink, laid down over an initial sketch in black chalk, capture a fresh and misty atmospheric effect that magnifies the pensive quality of the scene. The artist made this and other drawings from the series as finished works without correlations in other media.
Inscriptions
signed, bottom right, in brown ink: Dom. Tiepolo f; upper left, in purple crayon: 74; verso, top right, in black chalk: 1; top right, in blue crayon: 7 [written over the "1"]; bottom right, in graphite: [Painting?] small of 4 figures only [upside down]
Provenance
1920: (Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, London, anonymous sale, July 6, 1920, lot 41: "one hundred and two Carnival Scenes, with many figures," sold to P. & D. Colnaghi.) 1920: (P. & D. Colnaghi, London.) 1920-?: Richard Owen [1873-1946], Paris. ?-1937: (Italico Brass [1870-1943], Venice, purchased by The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dec. 1937.) 1937-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH.
Exhibition history
Master Drawings: An Exhibition of Drawings from American Museums and Private Collections. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (organizer). Six Drawings from the Life of Pulcinella by the Younger Tiepolo. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 30-April 30, 1939). Old Master Drawings from Midwestern Museums. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (organizer) (June 1-September 15, 1950). Venice 1700-1800: An Exhibition of the Venetian Eighteenth Century. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields; The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (organizer) (September 30-November 2, 1952). Italian Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 30-March 26, 1968). Domenico Tiepolo's Punchinello Drawings. Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN (organizer) (September 2-October 6, 1979). Domenico Tiepolo's Punchinello Drawings. Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN (organizer) (September 2-October 6, 1979). Domenico Tiepolo's Punchinello Drawings. Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA (November 13-December 30, 1979). Domenico Tiepolo's Punchinello Drawings. Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA (November 13-December 30, 1979). Domenico Tiepolo's Punchinello Drawings. Frick Collection, New York, NY (January 22-March 30, 1980). The Tiepolos and Their World. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 6-November 22, 1981). Venice as City and Theater. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-April 21, 1985). The Glory of Venice: Art in the 18th Century. Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (September 15-December 14, 1994); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (January 29-April 23, 1995); Galleria dell'Accademia, 30121 Venezia, Italy (May 25-July 30, 1995). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727–1804)
- Date
- 1797–1804
- Medium
- pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over black chalk; framing lines in brown ink over graphite on antique laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 29.6 x 41.5 cm (11 5/8 x 16 5/16 in.); Sheet: 35.5 x 47.1 cm (14 x 18 9/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Accession no.
- 1937.573
More by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo in museum collections
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
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Punchinello Chopping Logs, from the series Divertimento per li regazzi (Entertainment for Children)
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo1790/1804 · Drawing
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
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Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00002115
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00002209
Open-access museum record · AT-00000319
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