FIGURE 4.3 Giambattista Tiepolo. Oil sketch for Perseus FIGURE 4.4 Giambattista Tiepolo. Juno Presiding over and Andromeda, ca. 1730. Oil on paper mounted on canvas. Fortune and Venus, 1731. Fresco destroyed in World War II. New York, Frick Collection, 18.1.114. Formerly Milan, Palazzo Archinto. Photo: Scala/Art Resource, New York. Carlo Archinto, a major early settecento Milanese Borromeo families. Others may relate to epithal- patron of science and the arts, commissioned amic poetry commissioned at the time of the the frescoes in 1731, probably at the instigation marriage, including Apollo and Phaethon, which of Archinto's librarian, Filippo Argelati. These draws on the genre's common association Milanese works were Tiepolo's first major of the bride with the sun.5 Tiepolo underscores ceiling projects outside the Veneto, at the cusp this connection by the unusual inclusion of of Tiepolo's soon-to-explode international sunflowers at bottom right, surely a reference to recognition.3 Clytie, transformed into a sunflower to follow The project comprises five frescoes, probably her beloved Apollo and thus a symbol of fidelity6 executed in two separate campaigns. The vast Despite his devotion to Ovid, Tiepolo pre- Triumph of the Arts and Sciences (fig. 4.2) dominated sents the narrative with creative invention the family's important library, while four smaller and remarkable ease and assurance. In contrast ceiling frescoes appeared in surrounding rooms: to the early Palazzo Sandi ceiling (see cat. no. i), Perseus and Andromeda (fig. 4.3), Juno Presiding over in which Tiepolo separated the principal scenes Fortune and Venus (fig. 4.4), Nobility, and Apollo around the edges of the composition, Apollo and 4 and Phaethon. While the main ceiling refers Phaethon represents an enormous step forward, primarily to the magnanimous artistic patronage interweaving the subnarratives into a sophis- of the Archinto family, the other works relate ticated spiraling composition. Imagined as to the marriage of Filippo Archinto to Giulia a ceiling painting, the di sotto in su composition Borromeo Grillo in April 1731. Some of these radically foreshortens all the figures, accentuating nuptial references are straightforward, such the rise of Phaethon to the heavens. Sharp con- as, in Juno, the presence of Hymen, the god of trasts of light and dark create a dramatic sense marriage, holding the arms of the Archinto and of sunlight by opposing the bright rings of light 36