Apollo, Mercury, and the Arts

A follower and frequent collaborator of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Zugno was active across the Veneto in a style distinguished from that of his mentor by slacker design, a sweet palette, and a precious touch. Also responsive to pro-gressive French painting, this style can be seen in the Collection’s Young Noble Couple Playing Cards. From its subject, format, and foreshortening, it is clear that this drawing prepared the design of a ceiling decoration. The attenuated rhythms of the composition, the rounding contours of its figures, their scalloped modeling, and the generally refined handling are at once gentle deductions from Tiepolo’s pen-and-wash manner of the 1740s and precise equivalents of Zugno’s own habits in painting.