Tiepolo Ceiling, Milan

In preparing to paint an ambitious mural cycle at the Boston Public Library, Sargent studied decorative schemes throughout Europe, often looking to Italian art for inspiration. He may have visited the Palazzo Clerici in Milan to see the renowned ceiling frescoes by the Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770). In this watercolor, Sargent seems less interested in copying Tiepolo’s composition than in recording an impression of the opulent decoration. He sketched details of Tiepolo’s design with a delicate but precise underdrawing before painting in the forms with layers of washes. At the center, above the gilded molding, Sargent copied Tiepolo’s foreshortened figural groups—personifications of the continents and Olympian gods and heroes—which appear to spill off the ceiling. The loosely painted figures at the center of the sheet blend with those of the molding below, creating a confusion of forms that suggests the Baroque splendor of the hall.