Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Jacques Auguste Boussac (L.729b), his sale, Paris, 10-11 May 1926, lot 227;
Sacha Guitry (his dry stamp, not in Lugt);
Sale, London, Christie's, 4 July 2000, lot 40

Unframed. The paper is a stronger blue at the edges, where they were concealed by a previous mount. Otherwise in very good condition, the chalk strong and fresh.
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This handsome study of a left hand was recognized by George Knox as the work of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. It was used by Giovanni Domenico, who often used or copied his father's drawings, for the hand of the Camaldolese saint standing at the left in his altarpiece, Four Camaldolese Saints, painted in 1754-7 for the church of San Michele in Murano and now in the Museo Civico, Verona (fig. 1).

A study by Giovanni Domenico in the same medium, in the Correr Museum, shows both of the saint's hands, the right one grasping a staff, as in the painting.¹  A comparison of the two drawings illustrates the differences in execution between father and son.  Giandomenico's robust use of the red chalk is far less elegant than his father's, in which the modelling of the hand is suggested by numerous subtle details which create a far more vivid and realistic rendering. 

1. Inv. 7344, See G. Knox, Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo: a Study and Catalogue Raisonné of the Chalk Drawings, Oxford 1990, vol. I, p. 135, D. 49, illus. vol. II, pl. 228