Additional Images

Provenance:

Probably Count Bernardino Corniani, until 1852
Probably Edward Cheney, and by inheritance to A. Capel Cure
Sotheby's, London, 29 Apr 1885, part of lot 1024
Collection of B.T. Batsford, London, UK
Christie's, London, 14 Jul 1914, part of lot 49
Estate of Lawrence Hilliard
Christie's, New York, 28 Jan 1999, lot 77
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
Old Master Gallery Inc., Toronto, ON

Note:

This image originates from a seminal album entitled Sole Figure Per Soffit sold at Christie's on 14 July 1914, as lot 49. These works came from a group of more than 170 studies of figures seen from below, conceived for ceiling decoration, and rendered in pen-and-wash.[1] The British Museum notes that “These drawings are normally dated to 1755-1762, the years preceding Tiepolo's trip to Spain but they could have been executed over a longer period. Knox suggested that such studies may have been made to provide his two sons - Domenico and Lorenzo - with graphic material to help their work as painters, but it is just as likely they were made for their own sake.”[2]

The series is an inventive body of graphic work by a European master. Their dramatic foreshortening is characteristic of Tiepolo’s work, a technique he used from early on in his career, notably his first known ceiling fresco, in the Palazzo Sandi in Venice, painted in the early 1720s. These figures, rendered “sotto in su” (seen from below) and hovering weightlessly over the viewer, would appear in his frescos until the end of his long career.

Pen-and-wash works by Tiepolo perhaps best typify his genius. Rendered quickly and with great virtuosity, the effect is spontaneous yet masterful – with great economy, the artist is able to evoke volume and light. Though ostensibly conceived as preparatory sketches, these works have become autonomous—at once studies and masterpieces—translating the grandeur of Tiepolo’s frescoes into intimate and inventive forms.

Examples of these works are held in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Harvard University Art Museums.

[1] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1903-1126-3
[2] Ibid.