Lot 100
  • 100

* Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo Venice 1727 - 1804

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Description

  • Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
  • saint ambrose giving a blessing, seen from below
  • signed in brown ink, on plinth: Dom Tiepolo f.
  • numbered in brown ink, upper left: 39
    pen and black ink and grey wash, over black chalk

Provenance

Possibly Francesco Guardi;
Horace Walpole (formerly in an album bearing his bookplate);
The Rt. Hon. the Earl Beauchamp, D. L., J. P., his sale (the dispersal of the album), London, Christie's, 15 June 1965, lot 156;
acquired in 1973 by John and Alice Steiner

Exhibited

Genoa, Galleria del Giudice, Disegni Antichi dal Secolo XVI al XVIII;
Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Old Master Drawings from the Collection of John and Alice Steiner, 1982, cat. no. 43, reproduced

Catalogue Note

The composition of this drawing is familiar from others by Giandomenico usually of statues or animals on a plinth, seen from below, but the subject of a single religious figure is unusual. The drawing must date from late in the artist's career, as do the many which are thought to be related to the decorations of the Tiepolo villa at Zianigo. The only known painting of St. Ambrose by Giandomenico is an overdoor in the Kaisersaal at Würzburg, to which this drawing cannot be related in date or composition.