The conservation of Giandomenico Tiepolo’s Greyhound has been generously sponsored by Prof. Patricia Fortini Brown

Giandomenico Tiepolo’s Greyhound is deeply rooted in the history and imaginative world of the family villa at Zianigo, on the Venetian mainland. Purchased by Giambattista Tiepolo in 1757 for four thousand ducats—a powerful marker of his artistic success—the villa passed to his son Giandomenico in 1772. Though Giandomenico continued to live in Venice, the villa remained close to his heart, and he gradually transformed it into a personal artistic retreat for himself and his family.

Throughout the villa’s decoration, greyhounds emerge as constant protagonists, quietly animating Giandomenico’s painted universe. They mirror the curiosity of peasants gathered before the magic lantern, accompany noble owners along the villa promenade, and follow Punchinello into his unruly adventures, moving effortlessly between everyday life, theater, and fantasy. More than decorative details, these elegant dogs become living threads that bind together the villa’s shifting narratives.

Giandomenico began decorating the villa as early as 1759, starting with the small chapel dedicated to San Gerolamo Miani and the Triumph of Painting on the ceiling of the entrance portego. The heart of the project, however, came in the 1770s. Fresh from Madrid, where he had worked at the Royal Palace, Giandomenico set the villa’s walls in motion with scenes of bucolic rituals, bacchanals, satyrs, satyresses, and centaurs—figures that play, dance, and mingle in richly sensual, classicizing trompe-l’oeil reliefs.

In 1791, Giandomenico returned once more, this time turning his gaze to contemporary life. In frescoes such as Il Mondo Novo, peasants and bourgeois figures step into the spotlight, yet are shown from behind in bold, unexpected sequences of anti-portraits that upend traditional ideas of representation. The final chapter of the villa’s decoration, completed in 1797, belongs to Punchinello. Giandomenico lets the character loose across the walls—multiplying him as he flirts, drinks, performs as an acrobat or dog trainer, or pauses briefly before the next adventure. Notably, Punchinello would later become the central figure of Giandomenico’s Divertimento per li regazzi, a series of 104 drawings whose original sequence has been rediscovered through a conservation project sponsored by Save Venice.

It is within this vibrant painted environment that the Greyhound must be understood. Originally placed in the Room of Punchinello, the canvas likely served as a fireplace cover—an ingenious extension of the villa’s theatrical imagery into the realm of movable painting. Today, the Greyhound stands as a fitting emblem of Giandomenico’s playful imagination and of an artistic universe in which even the most agile inhabitants take center stage.

After the artist’s death, the villa’s frescoes had a turbulent history. In 1906, they were detached by conservator Francesco Steffanoni for sale on the European market, but the Italian State intervened, confiscating the works. By 1936, they had been transferred to the Ca’ Rezzonico Museum, where they were placed on permanent display. Beginning in 1997, they underwent a major conservation campaign led by the Venice International Foundation, with additional funding provided by Save Venice in 2001. Today, these frescoes are widely regarded as among the most original and innovative creations of late 18th-century Venice.

Unlike the frescoes, detached from the walls and removed in 1906, Giandomenico’s Greyhound entered the collections of Ca’ Rezzonico in 1935, having been acquired from the San Vidal antiquarian Dino Barozzi. Its original function as a fireplace cover, together with the multiple relocations that carried it from Zianigo to Venice, likely accounts for its present state of preservation. The painting exhibits extensive surface abrasion, along with yellowed and discolored varnish layers that obscure the original chromatic range. In addition, traces of old varnishes and discolored pictorial integrations from earlier conservation campaigns further compromise the legibility of the image.

Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727 – 1804)
Greyhound
ca. 1790s, oil on canvas
104 x 65 cm

Mariuz, Adriano. “Giandomenico Tiepolo’s Frescoes at the Villa Zianigo.” Save Venice Journal (2001), pp. 38-43. Link to the article

Mariuz, Adriano. Giandomenico Tiepolo. Venice: Alfieri, 1971

Mariuz, Adriano and Filippo Pedrocco. Giandomenico Tiepolo. The Zianigo Frescoes at Ca’ Rezzonico. Venice: Marsilio, 2004

Pedrocco, Filippo. Giandomenico Tiepolo a Zianigo. Villorba (TV): B&M, 1988

Pedrocco, Filippo. 236. Zianigo, Villa Tiepolo. In Pavanello, Giuseppe (ed.). Gli affreschi nelle ville venete. Il Settecento, 2 vols. Venice: Marsilio, 2011, II, pp. 421-440

Tiozzo, Clauco Benito. “Alcune precisazioni sugli affreschi di Giandomenico Tiepolo della villa di Zianigo.” Arte Documento, 14 (2000), pp. 196-200