Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 'The Building of the Trojan Horse', about 1760
Two Sketches depicting the Trojan Horse
The Building of the Trojan Horse and The Procession of the Trojan Horse are part of a series illustrating the fall of Troy, an ancient city on the coast of Turkey that was besieged by Greek armies for ten years. The Trojan War was one of the most important events in Greek mythology.
According to Virgil’s Aeneid (Book 2), the Greeks built a giant wooden horse in which they could hide their men, and left it outside the impregnable walls of Troy. The Trojans, believing it to be a gift, wheeled it inside the city. Under the cover of darkness, the Greek soldiers climbed out of the horse and took Troy.
Painted in around 1760, these scenes were probably intended as preparatory designs for larger oil paintings. Domenico’s monumental The Building of the Trojan Horse is in the Wadsworth Atheneum, in the United States, but the whereabouts of the other large canvasses is not known.
The Building of the Trojan Horse and The Procession of the Trojan Horse by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo are part of a series illustrating the fall of Troy, an ancient city on the coast of Turkey that was besieged by Greek armies for ten years. The story of the Trojan War was a central part of Greek mythology.
The Aeneid by Virgil (Book 2) gives the clearest account of the end of the war: the Greeks built a giant wooden horse in which they could hide their men and left it outside the impregnable walls of Troy. The horse was a sacred animal to the Trojans and they brought the model into the city, believing it to be a gift from the gods. Under the cover of darkness, the Greek soldiers left their hiding place and took control of Troy.
These scenes follow Virgil’s account fairly closely. Domenico’s first painting shows tradesmen sculpting and painting the wooden horse, and in the second image the horse is being wheeled into Troy by the unsuspecting Trojans. There is a third sketch in this series, now possibly in a private collection in Paris, which depicts the Greeks descending from the horse to attack the city.
Painted in around 1760, these scenes were probably intended as preparatory designs for larger oil paintings. Domenico’s monumental picture, The Procession of the Trojan Horse, which measures about two by four metres, is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, but the whereabouts of the other large canvasses, if they existed, is not known. As preliminary sketches rather than finished paintings, Domenico’s technique looks rather hurried with fluid brushstrokes, thickly applied paint and pale colours; he has given little attention to details such as the faces and clothing, but has still managed to capture a sense of movement and emotion in both scenes.
Domenico spent his earlier career working on commissions in and around Venice, but also in Spain and Germany, many of which were in collaboration with his father, Giovanni Battista, and brother Lorenzo. These sketches were possibly made shortly after Domenico’s return to Venice from Würzburg, where he had assisted his father on an impressive series of frescoes – see Domenico’s oil sketch The Marriage of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrice of Burgundy.
More paintings by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
