Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Venice 1696 - 1770 Madrid

Giovanni Domenico Bossi (1767-1853), by descent to his daughter Maria Theresa Karoline Bossi (1825-1881), by descent to her husband
Carl Christian Friedrich Beyerlen (1826-1881), his sale Stuttgart, H.G. Gutekunst, 27 March 1882, part of lots 640-49, acquired by Dr Oskar Eisenmann, Kassel, on behalf of Professor Wilhelm Lübke (1826-1893), Stuttgart;
Edwin and Leo Baer, Frankfurt, sold probably between 1921 and 1925 to Dr Hans Wendland, Lugano;
Savile Gallery, London, by 1930;
acquired by Mark Oliver, London, by descent;
Private collection, England

Possibly Venice ?, Mostra del Settecento Italiano, 1929, p. 29, as part of no. VI/1-19 (19 Tiepolo chalk studies from the Wendland collection);
London, Matthiesen Gallery, Exhibition of Venetian paintings and drawings of the 18th century, 1939, no.123

D. Freiherr von Hadeln, Handzeichnungen von G.B. Tiepolo, Florence-Munich, 1927, vol. I, p. 26, vol. II, pl. 170;
G. Knox, Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo. A Study and Catalogue Raisonné of the Chalk Drawings, Oxford, 1980, vol. I, p. 282, no. M.614

This beautiful study in red chalk heightened with white chalk is a very characteristic example of Giambattista's work and can be closely related to several similar sheets.  A study of the head of a young boy, in the same media, formerly in the collection of the Duc de Talleyrand, certainly shows the same sitter (sale, New York, Christie's, 23 January 2002, lot 43).  Both have the immediacy and the vitality of studies done from life.  A further study possibly of the same model, is the Head of a Boy Looking Up to the Left, sold in these Rooms, 25 January 2006, lot 92.  The present drawing, as well as the other two mentioned above, all came from the important group of Tiepolo drawings in the Bossi-Beyerlen collection.  For a discussion of the contents and dispersal of this collection and an explanation of the numbering on the versi which indicate their prices, see George Knox, Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo.  A study and Catalogue Raisonné of the Chalk Drawings, Oxford 1980, vol. I, pp. 200-291.