Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

This drawing provides a vivid illustration of Domenico Tiepolo’s sense for the theatrical. While a Punchinello is about to prove his skills as a barber on the customer seated at the centre of this scene, helped by two elegant assistants and examined by another Punchinello, a man sporting an impressive wig enters from the right. (A similar man, inspired by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s caricatures, can be seen in one of Domenico’s ‘Scenes of Contemporary Life’, depicting a quack dentist at work, at The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, inv. 2017.256.) At left, a young dandy seems amused by the scene – or is he slightly worried because he is next? Overlooking it all are the Virgin and Child in the painting high on the wall, reminiscent of the type painting of which the artist’s father produced so many.