Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

The present sheet stands out within Tiepolo's celebrated series on the theme of God the Father for its freshness of execution. A testament to the artist's endless creativity on a single subject, the work is characterized by its luminosity achieved through masterful control and balance between the washes and the naked white paper. In developing the series, one of the highpoints of his career as a draftsman, Domenico was inspired by the figure of the Almighty in the upper part of his father Giovanni Battista's altarpiece of Saint Thecla Freeing Este from the Plague (Church of Saint Thecla, Este), thus suggesting a date of after 1759 for the drawings.