Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venice 1696-1770 Madrid)

A study for The Death of Hyacinth in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, which dates from circa 1752 (Giambattista Tiepolo 1696-1770, exhib. cat., Venice, Ca' Rezzonico, and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996-97, no. 23). A particularly large group of preparatory drawings are known for this composition: six sheets of pen and ink studies survive by Giovanni Battista, along with four red-chalk ricordi by Giovanni Domenico (1727-1804). The latter are in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart and formerly in the Dr. Rudolf J. and Lore Heinemann Collection (for further details, see B. Aikema, Tiepolo and His Circle: Drawings in American Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, and New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1996-7, under no. 104). Since the present drawing is considerably more fluid and explorative than the ricordi given by Aikema to Giovanni Domenico, Knox (op. cit.) seems entirely justified in his decision to give it to Giovanni Battista. It was formerly one of a group of some twenty-three drawings of heads in the collection of Count Gregori Stroganoff, some of which can be related to the frescoes at Würzburg and all of which can be dated to around 1752 (Knox, op. cit.).

Knox further noted that a copy by Lorenzo Tiepolo (1736-1776) of the present drawing is in the Würzburg Third Sketchbook (op. cit., no. H.26).