Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

This sheet belongs to a series of at least 102 drawings of the subject, although James Byam Shaw knew only sixty of them (J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London, 1962, p. 32). He noted the relationship of some of the compositions from the series with the altarpiece by his father Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) in the Duomo at Este from 1759, suggesting that the drawings were executed after this date (M. Gemin and F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo: I dipinti Opera completa, Venice, 1993, no. 486). The partial study on the verso can be compared to the head of the Virgin in Domenico's Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Szépmüveszeti Múzeum, Budapest (A. Mariuz, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Venice, 1971, p. 115, fig. 48).