GIOVANNI DOMENICO TIEPOLO | A centaur holding a lyre, galloping with a female faun

Glued at the top margin to a late 19th century backing. The drawing is within brown ink framing lines, original to the drawing. The paper is slightly discoloured. Slight small grey foxing particularly in the lower part of the sheet. Slight dots of white heightening towards the left margin of the drawing possibly to cover some small foxing marks. There is also white heightening at the top of the sheet, here it is less clear as to why this heightening has been applied - all visible in the illustrated image. The colour of the pen and ink and wash is more grey than the catalogue illustration. Sold in a wooden modern gilded frame.
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Jean Cailleux discusses and divides into groups Giandomenico's large series of drawings of mythical creatures.¹  Cailleux notes that the series representing Nessus and Dejanira must be the earliest that Giandomenico composed, even earlier than the group of centaurs alone, but he stressed the difficulty of establishing a chronological sequence in the series as he rightly felt that any parallel which can be found with painted versions of the subject cannot be conclusive.  James Byam Shaw thought it likely that the entire group of centaur and nymph drawings was executed as a self-contained project, rather than in preparation for Domenico's frescoes of similar subjects in two of the smaller rooms in the family villa at Zianigo.²  The present composition is unusual and stands out from the other more familiar variations on these subjects.  ^1. J. Cailleux, 'Centaurs, Fauns, Female Fauns and Satyrs among the drawings of Domenico Tiepolo', The Burlington Magazine, CXVI, June 1974, An Advertisement Supplement
^2. J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London 1962, pp. 41-42