Polichinela culpable

Punchinello, or Pulcinella in Italian, was the clown of the Venetian street theatre, easy to spot by his white smock, tall pointed cap, hooked nose and hunched back. In this scene from around 1740 he is in trouble, a guilty Punchinello hauled up before the rest. It comes straight out of Venice at carnival time, when this character ran loose through the city's comedies. There has long been a tangle over who in the Tiepolo family actually painted it. The Punchinello pictures are usually the work of the son, Giandomenico, who made this hunchback his lifelong subject, and the canvas was even sold under his name in the 1930s. The Louvre, which owns it now, gives it instead to the father, Giambattista, the great fresco painter. Its companion piece, showing Punchinello's kitchen, hangs today in an English castle.