Giandomenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

This rare, large-scale work by Giandomenico Tiepolo has not been on the market since 1980, when it was sold at Sotheby’s as “G.D. Tiepolo” and accompanied by an expertise from Mina Gregori. Subsequently, Professor George Knox attributed the picture to Giandomenico’s father, Giambattista, an assertion which was not accepted by Gemin and Pedrocco in their 1993 catalogue raisonné of that artist’s work. Scholars now agree that the Christ and the Barren fig tree must be attributed as it was in 1980, to Giandomenico Tiepolo, who was working very closely with his father when the painting was made. Dr. Bernard Aikema, to whom we are grateful, has inspected the picture firsthand and confirms the attribution to the young Giandomenico.

A related drawing at the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie (inv. 1418) has been attributed to both Giambattista and Giandomenico (see P.O. Krückmann, loc. cit.), though its exact connection to the painting has yet to be established. Almost certain is that the present work was intended to serve as an overdoor, and Professor Knox has hypothesized that it may have belonged to the suite of pictures painted by the Tiepolos for the dining room at Veitshöchheim in Würzburg, Germany.