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| Title | Italian Page Boy | |
| Collection | New Art Gallery Walsall | |
| Artist | Attributed to school of Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista (Italian painter and draftsman, 1696-1770) Previously attributed to school of Veronese, Paolo (Italian painter and draftsman, 1528-1588) |
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| Date Earliest | probably about 1740 | |
| Date Latest | probably about 1750 | |
| Description | A page boy standing on a stone ledge or step. He has brown curled hair and wears a red outer garment with gold frogging and white ruff. Underneath this garment, he wears gold and white striped sleeves, lined with bright blue. He also wears short yellow breeches and yellow hose with red ribbons tied underneath the knees. Taller, adult figures may be glimpsed to the left and right. The right hand figure wears bright blue drapery. To the left, a woman's voluminous clothing can be seen. The boy carries a gold crown decorated with pearls and a gold sword on a gold tray towards which he looks. The painting is treated in broad strokes. The weave of the canvas shows through in places. For instance, on the legs and on the space to the lower right of the figure. Detail and pattern are broadly sketched in. | |
| Current Accession Number | GR 247 | |
| Subject | figure (boy); everyday life (page boy) | |
| Measurements | 137.0 x 71 cm.0 cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on canvas | |
| Acquisition Details | Given by Kathleen Epstein 1972 | |
| Publications | Vigurs, P., The Garman Ryan Collection. Illustrated Catalogue, Walsall, 1976, p. 116, as School of Veronese; McGregor, S., A Shared Vision: The Garman Ryan Collection at the New Art Gallery Walsall, London, 1999, p.121, as Studio of Veronese. | |
| Notes | Collection formed between 1959 and 1972. Attribution to Tiepolo is suggested by the similarity of this figure to the figure in Boy with a Dog (Hamalton Trust) which Antonio Morassi believes to be a study for a Banquet of Anthony and Cleopatra and dates to 1740. The boy in the Hamalton Trust picture has the same white and gold striped sleeves. The Meeting of Anthony and Cleopatra (National Gallery of Scotland) contains a figure of a boy holding a crown on a platter which is quite similar to this one. Other works by Tiepolo that contain similar page boy figures carrying crowns on platters or cushions are The Wedding of Barbarossa, Allegory of the Planets and Continents and The Investiture of Harold as Bishop of Wurzburg, all in Wurzburg Archepiscopal Residence, Franconia. | |
| Rights Owner | The Garman Ryan Collection, The New Art Gallery Walsall | |
| Author | Dr Patricia Smyth | |