The Building of the Trojan Horse illustrates an episode from one of the most famous stories in Greek mythology – that of the Trojan War and fall of Troy. Soldiers in armour prepare for battle while workmen build the giant wooden horse in which Greek soldiers will hide, allowing them to secretly enter the city of Troy. Most labour tirelessly with hammers and chisels but one sits on a plank and raises a brush to paint the rump. The horse’s glossy coat, powerful pose and flowing mane give the impression that it is alive and moving.

   This is probably a sketch for Domenico’s monumental depiction of the same subject, painted in around 1773/4, now in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. It has the characteristics of a preparatory design. It is a small-scale work with loosely applied paint, and Domenico was working out ideas as he went along, for example, making slight changes to the positions of some of the workers.

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   The Building of the Trojan Horse illustrates an episode from one of the most famous stories in Greek mythology – that of the Trojan War. It shows workmen building the giant wooden horse in which Greek soldiers will hide, allowing them to secretly enter Troy. The city’s battlements loom above them, rooftops and a slender spire just visible beyond.

   Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo has described the final stages of the horse’s construction in great detail. The composition incorporates a remarkable amount of activity: men with hammers and chisels labour tirelessly, balancing on scaffolding and ladders or gathering on the ground, giving us a real sense of the urgency of their work. One of them sits on a plank and raises a brush to paint the horse’s rump, as though it’s a blank canvas primed for painting. The glossy coat, powerful pose and flowing mane of the horse give the impression that it is alive and moving. Domenico has painted it in a sharply foreshortened pose and it faces away from us, with most of the body in shadow and the rump bathed in strong sunlight. On the far right, several solders in armour prepare for battle. The two figures on the left could be the Greek heroes Odysseus and Agamemnon, although one of them might in fact be Epeius, the builder of the horse, directing operations. In the distance, women and children watch intently.

   This painting is probably a sketch for Domenico’s monumental picture of the same subject, painted in around 1773/4, now in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. It has characteristics of a preparatory design. It is a small-scale work with loosely applied paint, and Domenico was working out ideas as he went along, for example, making slight changes to the positions of some of the workers. The whole scene was thinly painted, adding to the spontaneity of the technique. He made the outlines of the central figures clustering round the horse with the very tip of a small brush, and combined rich yet subtle tones: pale pink and blue contrast with brilliant crimsons, yellows and greens.

   Domenico also painted The Procession of the Trojan Horse, which depicts the Trojans wheeling the horse inside the city walls, believing it to be a gift from the gods. He spent much of his career working alongside his father, Giovanni Battista, in Venetian palaces and churches, adopting his distinctive drawing style and colouring. In fact, on entering the National Gallery’s collection, The Building of the Trojan Horse and The Procession of the Trojan Horse were attributed to Giovanni Battista, but they must be the work of Domenico as the larger paintings were made after his father’s death.

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   The Building of the Trojan Horse and The Procession of the Trojan Horse by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo are part of a series illustrating the fall of Troy, an ancient city on the coast of Turkey that was besieged by Greek armies for ten years. The story of the Trojan War was a central part of Greek mythology.

   The Aeneid by Virgil (Book 2) gives the clearest account of the end of the war: the Greeks built a giant wooden horse in which they could hide their men and left it outside the impregnable walls of Troy. The horse was a sacred animal to the Trojans and they brought the model into the city, believing it to be a gift from the gods. Under the cover of darkness, the Greek soldiers left their hiding place and took control of Troy.

   These scenes follow Virgil’s account fairly closely. Domenico’s first painting shows tradesmen sculpting and painting the wooden horse, and in the second image the horse is being wheeled into Troy by the unsuspecting Trojans. There is a third sketch in this series, now possibly in a private collection in Paris, which depicts the Greeks descending from the horse to attack the city.

   Painted in around 1760, these scenes were probably intended as preparatory designs for larger oil paintings. Domenico’s monumental picture, The Procession of the Trojan Horse, which measures about two by four metres, is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, but the whereabouts of the other large canvasses, if they existed, is not known. As preliminary sketches rather than finished paintings, Domenico’s technique looks rather hurried with fluid brushstrokes, thickly applied paint and pale colours; he has given little attention to details such as the faces and clothing, but has still managed to capture a sense of movement and emotion in both scenes.

   Domenico spent his earlier career working on commissions in and around Venice, but also in Spain and Germany, many of which were in collaboration with his father, Giovanni Battista, and brother Lorenzo. These sketches were possibly made shortly after Domenico’s return to Venice from Würzburg, where he had assisted his father on an impressive series of frescoes – see Domenico’s oil sketch The Marriage of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrice of Burgundy.

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