GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (VENICE 1696-1770 MADRID)

This drawing can be connected to similar sheets in the Museo Horne in Florence (see L. Ragghianti Collobi, Disegni della Fondazione Horne, exhib. cat., Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 1963, nos. 149-158, ill.) and in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (E. Brugerolles, Les dessins vénitiens des collections de l’ École des Beaux-Arts, exhib. cat., Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1990, no. 50, ill.). In these drawings Tiepolo explored numerous alternative depictions of a faun and a fauness reclining on a semi-circular shape. The figures were most likely inventions to be employed by the artist in his expansive fresco decorations. Each of the drawings in the group is a powerful demonstration of the artist’s creativity and inexhaustible inventiveness.