Attributed to Giandomenico Tiepolo

Acquired by the current owners in 1955.

The following condition report is provided by Simon Parkes, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Replica Shoes 's. These painting are in very presentable condition and should be hung as is. The frames are attractive and the conservation is very presentable. Both canvases have old linings. The tacking edges of one of the bears, the bear with the head on the right side, have been reinforced but the linings on both canvas have not been disturbed. The canvases are made from sections joined vertically. The bear with the head on the right is joined through its hips and through the right side of the composition, approximately four inches from the right edge. the composition with the bear with the head on the left appears to have only one join running through the center. There are restorations to both painting but the gilding seems to be original. The paintings are not over cleaned and do not appear to have discolored, therefore the detail and sharpness is clearly visible and undamaged. The restoration has been well applied. In the bear with the head on the left, there is a restoration in its mouth, a diagonal line in the gilding above its neck, some other repairs to the gilding on the left edge and in the upper left corner, some restoration running down the original join in the canvas, other retouches in the left foreleg beneath the waist in the gilding, in the left hind leg and in other smaller spots elsewhere. The bear with the head on the right has restoration running down the two original joins in the canvas mentioned above, there is restoration and a damage in the center of the beast in it's back, a vertical line of retouches running down the bear's nose, some other less significant retouches in the animal itself and only incidental losses in the stone ledge on which it stands. There are also some small repairs to the gilding. These retouches are the least that can be expected from two large decorative pictures from this period and generally speaking, the condition of both paintings may be considered to be very good.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Replica Shoes 's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Replica Shoes 's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Replica Shoes 's or the Seller."

These highly distinctive, majestic works may be the first painted depictions of individual polar bears in Italian art. They have been associated by most scholars with Giandomenico Tiepolo, who made numerous drawings of animals which he also included in many of his easel paintings and frescoed decorations.   Bianca Riccio, who endorsed an attribution to Giandomenico in 1997, recorded that Federico Zeri had previously verbally proposed an attribution to the artist.¹ This attribution has also been supported by Giuseppe Fiocco and (with slight reservations) by George Knox.² More recently, Beverly Brown, who has inspected the paintings at first hand, has also endorsed Giandomenico's authorship of the works and plans to publish them in a forthcoming article.  Both Keith Christiansen, however, who has inspected the paintings in the original, and  Bernard Aikema, on the basis of transparencies, whilst acknowledging the debt these paintings have to the works of the Tiepolo family, are not inclined to see the hand of Giandomenico himself in their execution.

The study of animals and depiction of animals in eighteenth-century Venetian art had been popularised, amongst others by Pietro Longhi's (1701-1785) celebrated paintings such as The Rhinocerus in the National Gallery, London and The Elephant in a private collects ion in Segromino Monte.³ Giandomenico Tiepolo certainly tackled the theme of animals on numerous occasions and his interest in animals seems to have begun during his stay in Würzburg with his father circa 1750-53. He is known to have drawn bears on other occasions but no other works in oil are known.⁴ His most direct depiction of animals is perhaps the set of frescoes from the family home in Zianigo of which some are now in the Ca' Rezzonico.⁵ As Giandomenico was fond of recycling his designs, any dating of his undocumented works must remain speculative up to a point but Bianca Riccio suggests the pair may be from this period. However, the closest example of a bear in a similar pose and with a similar handling of the texture of the fur as in the present works is found in his signed and dated fresco cycle from 1759 in the Oratorio della Purità in Udine (see fig. 1).⁶

Though Tiepolo is known to have used a wide variety of sources for his animals, many designs were based on the prints of Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) and Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767) and reused on numerous occasions, including in the frescoes in the Residenz. The fact that the animals in Giandomenico's Bears and Monkeys in a Landscape are based on prints by both della Bella and Ridinger has lead Beverly Brown to propose that the present pair could thus also be based on as-yet untraced prints or etchings.⁷

Gold backgrounds are more frequently associated with Italian painting before 1500 but there was a short revival in its popularity in Venice in the 18^th Century. The example was set by Gianbattista Tiepolo who executed at least two paintings with gold backgrounds including the two allegorical figures in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. nos. A3437 and A3438.⁸ Giandomenico, never far from his father's style, is also known to have experimented with a gold background as can be seen in the monochrome faux bas-reliefs in the Villa Pisani in Stra.⁹

Various possibilities have been proposed for the intended function of the pair. Certainly the downward gaze of the bears suggests that they were originally meant as overdoors.  The idea that they were conceived as coats-of-arms is interesting but cannot at this stage be substantiated. It is tempting to link them to the Orsini family in Rome (orso is the Italian word for bear), as Fiocco points out that he is known to have worked for the family.


1.  Written communication with the present owner dated 14 October 1997.
2.  Both written communications, the former undated, the second from 17 March 1997.
3.  See T. Pignatti, Pietro Longhi, Venice 1968, p. 89, reproduced fig. 118, and p. 97, reproduced fig. 255 respectively.
4.  Compare the signed drawings sold London, Replica Shoes 's 6 July 1967 and London, Christie's, 2 December 1969, lot 180
5.  See J. Byam Shaw, 'The remaining Frescoes in the Villa Tiepolo at Zianigo', in The Burlington Magazine, November 1959, pp. 391-395.
6.  See A. Mariuz, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Venice 1971, pp. 138-39, reproduced fig. 162.
7.  See B. L. Brown, Giandomenico Tiepolo's Polar Bears, forthcoming article. For the drawing see J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London 1962, unpaginated, reproduced figure 49.
8.  See B. Aikema and M. Tuijn, Tiepolo in Holland, Works by Giambattista Tiepolo and His Circle in Dutch collects ions, exh. cat., Rotterdam 1996, pp. 158-161, cat. nos. 66 and 67, both reproduced.
9.  See Mariuz, op. cit., pp. 136-37, reproduced figs. 179-182.