Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Venice 1696 - 1770 Madrid

Probably Count Algarotti-Corniani, Venice;
by whom sold, Venice 1852, to Edward Cheney;
by descent to his brother-in-law, Colonel Alfred Capel-Cure;
his sale, London, Sotheby's, 29 April 1885, presumably part of lot 1024;
with Mssrs. B.T. Batsford, London;
by whom sold, London, Christie's, 14 July 1914, lot 49, for £120, to Parsons;
with E. Parsons and Sons, London;
purchased, London, Christie's, 29 November 1983, lot 53

At a London sale in 1914, the dealer Parsons bought three albums of drawings by Giambattista, one of which bore the title Sole figure per soffitti.  Over 170 studies are known to have come from this album and are now scattered in collections around the world.  The drawings consist of steeply foreshortened single figures, some of which can be loosely related to paintings, but mainly appear to have been drawn for their own sake.  For a complete discussion of the group, see G. Knox, Catalogue of the Tiepolo Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum.¹  See also lots 153-4 and 163 below.  

1. London 1975, pp. 4-5