Jewelled Bowl in the Treasury of San Marco, Venice

Giuseppe Grisoni · n.d.

Medium

Gouache over black chalk, on ivory laid paper, pieced together

Original size

23.6 × 32.5 cm (9 5/16 × 12 13/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

Grisoni's intimate study captures one of the extraordinary Byzantine treasures housed in the Treasury of San Marco — a jewelled bowl that survived centuries of empire, crusade, and plunder to become one of Venice's most prized possessions. Giuseppe Grisoni (1699–1769) was a Brussels-born painter who trained in Florence and later found favour in the English court, where he became known for his meticulous draughtsmanship. This work reflects a quieter side of his practice: the careful, scholarly recording of precious objects. Working in gouache over black chalk on ivory laid paper — itself a delicate and demanding surface — Grisoni built up the bowl's form with luminous layers, coaxing the glint of gemstone and the weight of hammered metal from pigment and ground alone. The pieced-together sheets suggest this was an ambitious compositional undertaking, not a quick sketch. The Treasury of San Marco holds one of the largest concentrations of Byzantine goldsmithing in existence, much of it looted during the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople in 1204 — a provenance that shadows every object documented there. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Grisoni's precise, glowing record into the richer tonal depth of oil on canvas, preserving the shimmer and craft of the original while giving it new permanence on your wall.