The Italian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) is famed for the brilliance of his colors, the speed and spontaneity of his execution, and the airy freedom of his frescoes filled with figures floating on clouds.

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born in Venice on March 5, 1696. His father, who was part owner of a ship, died when Tiepolo was scarcely a year old, but the family was left in comfortable circumstances. As a youth, he was apprenticed to Gregorio Lazzarini, a mediocre but fashionable painter known for his elaborately theatrical, rather grandiose compositions.

Tiepolo soon evolved a more spirited style of his own. By the time he was 20, he had exhibited his work independently, and won plaudits, at an exhibition held at the church of S. Rocco. The next year he became a member of the Fraglia, or painters' guild. In 1719 he married Cecilia Guardi, whose brother Francesco was to...