Ca’ Rezzonico Museum of the 18th Century Venice
From July 22 to October 14th 2012

Chiasso, m.a.x. museo, February 2nd – April 5th 2012

Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, April 18th – May 30th 2012

This exhibition, curated by Lionello Puppi and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini, arises from the fruitful collaboration of three institutions. After opening at the m.a.x. museo di Chiasso late-winter this year and moving to the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica in Rome in April, the exhibition will arrive in Venice by July, being displayed in the rooms of Ca’ Rezzonico, providing an opportunity to explore some artistic materials that are surprisingly little-known, but of great significance for the study of the history of art. Copper plates and prints – the first of which all in the possession of the Fondazione Civici Musei di Venezia and now carefully restored by the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica – will be placed alongside each other so as to evaluate the unparalleled quality achieved by this extraordinary and refined artist, an innovator in this medium as in others, thanks to his enthusiastic attempt for the finest technical results and to his rare ability. And it is with the exceptional nature of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s copper plates that the exhibition reveals the originality of its scientific intentions, documenting the Venetian painter’s great imagination: a genuine surprise, whose artistic and scientific value has attracted the attention of scholars and the curiosity of the general public only in recent years.

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Exhibition co-produced with: m.a.x museo (Chiasso) and the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica (Rome)
Curators: Lionello Puppi and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini
Scientific coordination (Venice): Filippo Pedrocco and Alberto Craievich