This bold and vibrant red chalk drawing of a seated Oriental, seen from behind, is a preparatory study for the turbaned figure to the left of Giovanni Battista's painting of the Crucifixion, now in the Museum of Art, Saint Louis (fig.1).1 A similar figure also appears in an etching of The Baptism of Christ executed by Giovanni Battista's son, Domenico.2

Fig 1, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Crucifixion, Saint Louis, Museum of Art

This drawing is one of an important group of Tiepolo drawings from the Bossi-Beyerlen collection. For a discussion of the contents and dispersal of this collection and of the numbering on the back of the drawings, see George Knox, op.cit., pp. 200-291.

1. Saint Louis, Museum of Art, inv. no. 10:1940

2. A. Rizzi, The Etchings of the Tiepolos, London 1971, no. 109