Studie zu einer stuckierten Decke 

This is Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s sketch in pen and brown ink with gray wash, now held at the Städel Museum. Tiepolo, living in 18th century Venice, was a master of the grand, theatrical style of the late Baroque and Rococo. Here, putti float on clouds as allegorical figures sit amongst elaborate architectural details. It’s easy to imagine that Tiepolo was often commissioned to depict wealth and power, and his artworks served as propaganda, subtly reinforcing the status quo. The figures he depicts are distinctly European. What isn’t shown here? Whose stories are missing? During Tiepolo’s lifetime, Venice was a major trading center with connections to global networks of commerce and colonialism. Venice was enriched through trade, but at what cost to those exploited to create that wealth? While the artwork is beautiful and skillfully rendered, it also silently reinforces a social order of inequality.