GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (VENICE 1696-1770 MADRID)

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo produced a large number of caricature drawings of men, often seen from the side or behind. The largest group of such drawings was bound in an album which included 106 caricatures in the collection of Arthur Kay in Edinburgh, who sold them at Christie’s, London, 9 April 1943, lot 244. That album was titled Tomo terzo de caricature, indicating that there had been two other albums with such caricatures. As noted by Michael Levey, the 1854 catalogue of the Algarotti-Corniani Collection listed ‘due grossi libri [containing] una copiosa collezione di disegni umoristici del Tiepolo’ (see M. Levey, ‘Two Footnotes to any Tiepolo Monograph’, The Burlington Magazine, CIV, 1962, p. 119). The second largest known group belonged to the Conti Valmarana in Vicenza until they were sold to Paul Wallraf. Drawings from this group had their corners cut, and the present drawing might therefore come from it too. Fifteen caricatures, also with cut corners and possibly with the same provenance, are in the Robert Lehman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see J. Byam Shaw and G. Knox, The Robert Lehman Collection. Italian Eighteenth-Century Drawings, New York, 1987, no. 97-111, ill.).