Giambattista Tiepolo

Giambattista Tiepolo is widely regarded as the greatest decorative painter of 18th-century Europe and the last of the great Venetian masters, whose breathtaking fresco cycles redefined the possibilities of illusionistic ceiling painting. His masterpiece, the frescoes of the Würzburg Residenz commissioned by Prince-Bishop Carl Philipp von Greiffenclau, represent one of the supreme achievements in Western art, covering vast architectural spaces with luminous scenes of celestial grandeur and mythological pageantry. Working across Venice, Milan, Würzburg, and Madrid, where he spent his final years at the Spanish royal court, Tiepolo synthesized the coloristic legacy of Veronese with Rococo lightness to produce images of unparalleled magnificence and inventiveness.