Old Master Drawings
Old Master Drawings
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
A Figure Holding a Torch, Seen from Below
Auction Closed
January 27, 05:29 PM GMT
Estimate
7,000 - 9,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Venice 1696 - 1770 Madrid
A Figure Holding a Torch, Seen from Below
Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk
260 by 191 mm; 10 1/4 by 7 1/2 in
thence by descent to his son, Charles Crocker (1904-61), San Francisco,
thence by descent until,
sale, New York, Christie's, 24 January 2008, lot 52
It seems highly probable that this drawing came from a group of similar studies by Giambattista originally bound in an album titled Sole figure per soffitti which was broken up around 1918 by the dealer Parsons.
Around 180 of these studies are known, in public and private collections, many of which, unlike the present example, bear numbers in brown or gray ink. George Knox dates them late in Giambattista's career, circa 1758. They seem to have been done for their own sake, although of course they are a logical outcome of his extensive work as a painter of ceiling frescoes.
1. See F. Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton 1977, vol. 1, p. 189ff