Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Window mounted. Recto: Light staining along the left margin and slight scattered foxing. Few light and small creases in the paper (recto and verso). Overall fresh and in good condition. Verso: Light staining to the left and just a trace to the right where the sheet must have been glued .Light scattered foxing and some light staining. Some of the stronger wash from the recto is slightly visible on the verso, but overall the image is strong and and the wash fresh. Sold unframed.
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The handsome and strong image on the recto can be compared to a large group of studies of satyrs and satyresses executed in pen and ink and wash which are in museum and private collections.¹  They are thought to originate from 1740, at the time Giambattista included monochrome satyrs and satyresses in his decoration of the ceiling of the Palazzo Clerici in Milan (fig. 1).  It is likely, however, that he continued to draw them, building up a visual archive which would serve him throughout his career.  They are lively works, characteristic of Giambattista's inventiveness and his delight in making endless variations on a theme, often for his own enjoyment.  Most of the studies are not directly related to the Palazzo Clerici, although one in the Metropolitan Museum probably is.²  Bernard Aikema points out that Tiepolo returned to the theme in 1756-57 when he included them along the edges of the Allegory of Matrimony in Ca' Rezzonico, Venice, and in 1761-62 in his decoration of the Villa Pisani, Strà.³

On the verso the seated female figure, seen in profile, could represent Prudence. This allegory was surely also intended to be painted in monochrome, like the reclining satyr on the recto.  Tiepolo used such figures often throughout his career, not only frescoed but often painted on canvas, in the decorative scheme of a room.  See, for instance, the four allegorical female figures, oval format and executed in grisaille on a golden background, two of which are now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York⁴ and two in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.⁵   As well as their subject matter, these share with the present figure the same illusion of depth created by the intense shading around the figures' outlines.


1.  B. Aikema, Tiepolo and His Circle, exhib. cat,, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Art Museums and New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1996-97, p. 136 and p. 194, under no. 46, lists some of the drawings of the subject; see also, J. Bean and W. Griswold, 18th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1990, p. 203ff

2.  Rogers Fund, inv. no. 37.165.49, ibid., no. 46

3.  Loc. cit.

4.  Inv. no. 1984.49; A. Pallucchini, Giambattista Tiepolo, L'Opera completa, Milan 1968, p. 121, no. 228, reproduced p. 120, figs. 228A and D

5.  A. Morassi, A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo, London 1962, p. 1, reproduced figs. 379-80