Bacchus and Ariadne

Bacchus, nude but for a claret-purple cloth and a crown of grapes, sits astride a wine barrel at the centre of the composition and lifts a circlet of tiny stars over the reclining Ariadne, who leans on one elbow with wheat in her hair while winged putti hover, drink from a rope-wrapped bottle and ride a cheetah at her feet, all framed by illusionistic stone scrollwork painted to resemble carved surround. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painted this large canvas about 1743-1745, probably for the staircase of a Venetian palace, where it belonged to a series of mythological decorations; the luminous sky, the chalky whites and pinks of the figures against the deep landscape, and the airy confidence of the drawing are the essence of his decorative genius. Long kept in the Artaria family collection in Vienna, the canvas was acquired in 1927 by the American collector William Robert Timken and came to the National Gallery of Art with the Timken Collection in 1960. The painting is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.