Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venice 1696-1770 Madrid)

Knox was the first to notice that this drawing is a study for Tiepolo's fresco The Glory of Spain. Executed on the ceiling of the throne room in the Palazzo Reale in 1764, this was the first major commission he completed after his arrival in Madrid in June 1762. The man with his unusually tall hat appears to the right-hand side of one of the stucco decorations in the corner of the fresco, above the original location of the throne (Fig. 1).