Virtue and Nobility Crowning Love

In 1759 Alvise Mocenigo, of a family that had given Venice several doges, married Chiara Zen, and a study published in 2009 ties this ceiling to that wedding. Tiepolo painted it over the next two or three years for a room in the Mocenigo palace at San Samuele on the Grand Canal, perhaps a bedroom. The canvas is nearly four metres long, meant to be read from below. The woman in yellow holding a small statue is most likely Nobility, the winged figure carrying the sun is probably Virtue, and the nude seated on the clouds is probably Venus, the love they are crowning. Around 1930 the Robilant family, who had inherited the palace, sold the painting out of it, and the Museum of Fine Arts bought it that year. The frame stayed behind in Venice. In 1954 the original gilded frame was found in the palace attic, and the museum bought that as well and put the two back together.