GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (Venice 1696-1770 Madrid)

Classical and monumental in appearance, the young woman on this sheet resembles many of Tiepolo’s painted Virgins, saints and women from ancient history. Yet this study cannot be definitely connected to any specific painting or fresco by the artist. Rendered with very economical means, the head is striking in its immediacy and enjoyed the distinction of being included by Ira Moskowitz in his 1962 volume of outstanding drawings (op. cit.).
When the sheet was offered for sale in 1929 from the collection of the Vicomte d’Hendecourt, the woman portrayed was identified as Cristina, Tiepolo’s favorite model. She was the daughter of a gondolier whom Giovanni Battista brought with him and his sons to Spain. This delicate head study is characteristic of the artist’s chalk drawings on blue paper. Many of these, studies of heads or of entire figures, were left after Tiepolo’s death to one of his pupils, Domenico Bossi (1767-1853), who became court painter in Munich. The group was later dispersed on the art market and a large number of them is now in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (Knox, op. cit., pp. 200-209).