The Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto

Tiepolo's Miracle of the Holy House of Loreto, painted in 1743, is a ceiling sketch or modello for the fresco of the same subject he was commissioned to paint for the Venetian church of the Scalzi. The Santa Casa legend held that the Holy Family's Nazareth house had been miraculously transported by angels to Loreto in Italy — a subject ideal for Tiepolo's mastery of aerial composition and supernatural spectacle. The original ceiling was destroyed by Austrian bombing in 1915.

The composition is designed for overhead viewing, the house borne aloft by angels in a swirling, foreshortened arrangement. Tiepolo's modello technique shows his rapid, confident compositional thinking: the forms are broadly indicated rather than finished, but the spatial relationships and the celestial atmosphere are fully realised. The warm, golden light and cool sky passages establish the final fresco's colouristic programme.