Getty Buys: Tiepolo Philosopher, Dalou Orgy & Friedrich on the Beach
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| Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, A Bearded Man Wearing a Turban, 1758-60. Getty Museum |
Giovanni Domenico [Giandomenico] Tiepolo—son of the more famous Giambattista Tiepolo—began assisting his father at age 13. In the ceiling paintings of Würzberg and Madrid, his work is almost indistinguishable from dad's. Giandomenico began taking private commissions at 20. While the family business was selling lofty, airborne allegories, the son is now most appreciated for gritty or buffoonish subjects with a hint of irony. A Bearded Man Wearing a Turban is one of a group of imagined likenesses of grizzled men that are usually identified as philosophers. It was auctioned at Christie's New York in Jan. 2024 for $945,000.
Ultimately the subjects of such paintings are probably to be identified with the bearded, exotic-dress figures of Giambattista Tiepolo's etching series, Scherzi di Fantasia. That doesn't answer many questions, for the etchings' subjects and meaning have always been an enigma. Giambattista produced a series of painted character heads similar to the etchings. Giandomenico in turn did etchings of his father's paintings and his own character paintings.
The Chicago Art Institute and the Minneapolis Institute of Art each have a Giandomenico philosopher, close in size to the Getty painting (about 24 by 20 in). The San Diego Museum of Art has a smaller Head of a Philosopher assigned to Giambattista. It is not always easy to distinguish the son's work from the father's, and most of these paintings, including the Getty's, were formerly attributed to Giambattista. Giandomenico's philosophers, with scribbled highlights to denote hair and drapery, are often compared to Fragonard's fantasy portraits, made at about the same time.
Giandomenico Tiepolo was the most prominent artist missing in the Getty's collection of 18th-century Venetian painting. The museum has four drawings by Giandomenico, including two from his Punchinello series.
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| Jules Dalou, Bacchanal, 1899. Getty Museum |
Aimé-Jules Dalou produced monuments for Paris' parks. The Getty's sculpture of four lusty imbibers is a plaster reduction of a large marble Bacchanal for a fountain in Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil. The composition dates from 1879, when Dalou was in exile in Britain. That first version, in painted plaster, is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Dalou returned to the subject several times, creating versions in various sizes and media.
Attorney and collector Charles Auzoux commissioned the Getty sculpture for the dining room of his Normandy home in 1899. Measuring 45 inches in diameter, it was the cover lot of a 2022 auction of Auzoux's collection at Artcurial, Paris. It went for 183,680 euros. The buyer was Agnews Gallery, London, which sold it to the Getty two years later.
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| Marble version of Bacchanal at the Jardin des Serres d'Auteuil, Paris |
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| Caspar David Friedrich, The Beach at Wieck Near Greifswald, about 1815-21. Getty Museum |
In 1993 the Getty became the second U.S. museum (after the Kimbell) to acquire a painting by German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. The Beach at Wieck Near Greifswald is a presentation sheet in pen and ink. The inscription, added by fellow artist A.V. Endres, records that Friedrich gave him the drawing "in memory of him during my stay in Dresden in 1821." The sheet is 8-5/6 by 7-3/8 in. Sotheby's New York auctioned it this February 5, on the eve of the Met's Friedrich show, for $720,000.
The ships are adapted from drawings in a sketchbook made during an 1815 trip to Greifswald. The composition recalls several Friedrich paintings of seaward views with ships, such as The Stages of Life (1835). Sotheby's catalog copy proposes that "the beached boat can be read as an allegory of the passing of time, a life's journey completed. The two poles in the foreground, between which nets can be hung to dry, here take on the appearance of an old man’s crutches…"
The Friedrich will appear in a drawing installation this October. The Tiepolo is undergoing conservation, and the Bacchanal is now on display in gallery W103, next to sculptures by Carpeaux (Dalou's teacher) and Rodin (a friend turned bitter rival).
Comments
This quality of picture is what LACMA should be pursuing.
> be pursuing
Not just their budget but increasingly their modus operandi make that a non-starter. Those two things *together* make LACMA seem more and more like a regional museum.
Since most of its campus was torn down in 2020, too many of the temporary exhibits in the Resnick Pavilion imply as much, particularly for displays (for way too many months) of objects like in a room set aside for chandelier-type-hanging contemporary art. It's as though LACMA is now striving to be more of a Hauser & Wirth instead of something more big time.
But only last month on this site, a report appeared under the headline "LACMA Collectors Pick $2.5 Million Worth of Art." LACMA could comfortably have afforded that picture just from the Collectors fund alone. I expect there are other pots of money at LACMA's disposal for acquisitions, so I don't hold with your notion that LACMA cannot afford to buy a very good Tiepolo.
Further, you go on to say that, given LACMA's inability to buy good pictures, the museum seems "more and more like a regional museum." I take from the context that you use the term "regional" disapprovingly.
I think of LACMA as a regional museum. That is, in contrast to, what?: a world museum? There are fewer than 10 "world" museums in the world.
So, no, LACMA is not a "world" museum. Does that matter in the scheme of things? Regional museums are the life-blood of art culture in this vast country.
Perhaps you mean "world-class," such as Norton Simon, the Cleveland Museum, or the Smithsonian. In that case, no, LACMA is not "world-class."
LACMA is great, and it could be greater, if it put its priority on acquiring a Tiepolo, instead of a Virginia Vezzi.
> a Tiepolo, instead of a Virginia
> Vezzi.
That's why I included, along with money or budget, LACMA's "modus operandi." The mindset that increasingly dominates the museum has a provincial quality about it.
Just as the LA Times has dismissed what Govan is doing by describing LACMA as a contemporary museum and "not a very good one, at that," I see so many of its special exhibits and think "regional."
Since 2020, the Resnick Pavilion should have had on constant display LACMA's prized (non-modern, non-contemporary) pieces, however few there are or aren't. That they've instead had things like the Met's (ie opera house) chandeliers on display is a big "what the hell are they thinking?!
Galleries like Hauser & Wirth display art to help both promote and sell the works of various artists. I'm wondering if LACMA is trying to do the same thing?
But what you're protesting isn't a reflection of regionalism. It's malpractice.
I've seen displays at both LACMA and the Getty Museum (before the Getty Center was built) that showed signs of sloppiness or weak design choices. In the former case, it was a display platform that was poorly cut (the base along the floor wasn't aligned---something like the rotary saw wasn't angled correctly and the installer didn't bother to redo it), and in the latter case, it was just weak design-creative work.
Sometimes a job is rushed or deadlines are barely met, so that's a factor too.
Sometimes very talented people do amazing things on a limited budget, sometimes run-of-the-mill people do mediocre things on a huge budget.
In 2024, LACMA spent $8.7 million on collection items. That is much more than a 5% draw on $11.5 of the endowment (approximately $575,000, only 25% of which is unrestricted).
That suggests that the $8.7 million (spent on acquisitions) was a combination of endowment funds and other revenue/gifts (e.g., contributions from the Collector's Committee). Other gifts usually come with their own restrictions and therefore their use is NOT solely at LACMA discretion.
I hope you see the problem. Endowment draws would NOT have been sufficient to purchase a million dollar painting. And, the Collector's fund is restricted, restricted by the social function of the fund. It's the basis of a social event in which members of the museum committee gather to select various works for the collection. From what I have observed, members at the social event have never spent one-half or more of the available funds on a single art work.
... To put things in perspective, the Met has an endowment of $3.3 Billion, some of which is restricted for operational support. Nevertheless, approximtely $100 million of the Met's annual draw is apportioned to acquisitions.
$100 million compared to $8.7 million... If people here want to help LACMA, make a direct donation to the endowment. Otherwise, stop complaining.
--- J. Garcin.