Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00010965The Game of Bowls
About the Artwork
Here, Punchinello characters sporting their signature conical hats and hooked-nosed masks compete against a group of men in a lively game of bocce,an Italian bowling game. While their exaggerated movements infuse the drawing with a sense of whimsy, the massive prison fortress behind them suggests surveillance and control. Although not overtly political, this detail may allude to Venice’s fall to the French in 1797, which led to a ban on the commedia dell’arte, Italy’s popular theater tradition with its mocking Punchinellos.
Inscriptions
signed, lower left, in brown ink: Dom°. Tiepolo f ; upper left, in brown ink: 20 ; upper left, in graphite: o ; lower right, in graphite: 20 [sideways] ; VERSO, upper right, in blue crayon: 3
Provenance
[Sotheby's, London, 6 July 1920, lot 41]; [Colnaghi & Co.]; Richard Owen, Paris (all Udine & Bloomington, 1996, p. 216, no. 155; see departmental card for 1937.569). Italico Brass, Venice (according to departmental card)
Exhibition history
Old Master Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 4-March 26, 1939). Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959). Italian and French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 1959-February 2, 1960). 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); Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA (November 13-December 30, 1979); 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). Domenico Tiepolo: Master Draftsman. Civici Musei e Gallerie di Storia ed Arte, Castello, Udine (September 14-December 31, 1996); Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN (January 15-March 9, 1997). Comicity and Caricature in Tiepolo's Art. Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy (September 3-December 5, 2004). 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 8, 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 traces of black chalk; framing lines in brown ink over graphite on antique laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 29.7 x 41.6 cm (11 11/16 x 16 3/8 in.); Sheet: 35.5 x 47.3 cm (14 x 18 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Accession no.
- 1937.571
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Open-access museum record · AT-00010965
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