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Door

A work made of wood, gessoed and lacquered with polychrome decoration and gilding.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of wood, gessoed and lacquered with polychrome decoration and gilding.

Date:

c. 1750

Artist:

Design attributed to Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727–1804)
Italy, Venice

About this artwork

First sparked by the accounts of Marco Polo’s 13th-century voyage to China, the Italian vogue for chinoiserie (Chinese-inspired motifs) was later reinforced by the Venetian Republic’s extensive trade with the East. The city-state’s aristocrats ordered entire rooms to be decorated in Chinese style. One palace on the Grand Canal, the Ca’Rezzonico, now a museum of decorative arts, was lavishly decorated by the Rezzonico family after they purchased it in 1750. In addition to commissioning the painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico to create frescoes for the ceilings, the Rezzonicos followed contemporary fashion by decorating at least one room with Orientalist motifs.

This door from the palace depicts two scenes that provide glimpses of Western perceptions of the East. In the upper panel, a noble couple meets in front of a palm tree; in the lower panel, a pipe-smoking potentate is being served tea. Both scenes are framed by bright sprays of flowers connected with flowing ribbons. The smooth, many layered surface of the lemon yellow door was achieved through lacquering, a technique borrowed from China but practiced in the West with an oil-based mixture rather than the resin-based one employed by Chinese craftsmen.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Applied Arts of Europe

Artist

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Title

Door

Place

Italy (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1745–1755

Medium

Wood, gessoed and lacquered with polychrome decoration and gilding

Dimensions

279.4 × 139.7 cm (110 × 55 in.)

Credit Line

Bessie Bennett Endowment

Reference Number

1953.461

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/79763/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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