Live Auction 17292Old Masters Evening Sale
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)
Lot 47 The Property of a Trust

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

Punchinellos at a carpenter’s workshop

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GBP 443,250

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Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)
Punchinellos at a carpenter’s workshop
signed ‘Dom.o Tiepolo f’ (lower left) and numbered, probably by the artist, ‘56’ (in the border, upper left)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, grey ink (in the left and right framing lines), watermark eagle with a crown and letters GFA (cf. Heawood 1263)
13 5/8 x 18 3/8 in. (34.6 x 46.5 cm)

Anonymous sale; London, Sotheby’s, 6 July 1920, part of lot 41 (where bought by Colnaghi for £610).
with Colnaghi, London, by whom sold, January 1921, to the following
with Richard Owen, Paris, by whom broken up and sold individually.
with Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence, by whom sold in December 1936 for £100 to
Brinsley, later Sir Brinsley, Ford (1908-1999).

Specialist note

Among the numerous occupations of Punchinellos (for another example, see also fig. 5) is work at a carpenter’s workshop, of which several stages are depicted in beautiful detail in this scene. The couple of Punchinellos at left (with a woman donning a striped shawl, a favourite motif of Domenico’s) admire some finished or nearly finished pieces of furniture, while a group of Punchinellos are busy sawing, measuring and selecting wood. Several other drawings in the series with numbers preceding that of the present sheet represent Punchinellos gathering, chopping and sawing wood (Gealt, op. cit., nos. 42, 43, 45).