Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

It seems highly probable that this drawing came from a group of similar studies by Giambattista originally bound in an album titled Sole figure per soffitti which was broken up around 1918 by the dealer Parsons.

Around 180 of these studies are known, in public and private collections, many of which, unlike the present example, bear numbers in brown or gray ink. George Knox dates them late in Giambattista's career, circa 1758. They seem to have been done for their own sake, although of course they are a logical outcome of his extensive work as a painter of ceiling frescoes.

^1. See F. Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton 1977, vol. 1, p. 189ff