Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Library of the Somasco Convent at Santa Maria della Salute, Venice;
Count Leopoldo Cicognara;
Antonio Canova;
by inheritance to his half-brother, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Sartori-Canova;
Francesco Pesaro;
by whom sold to Col. Edward Cheney, Badger Hall, Shropshire;
by inheritance to his brother-in-law, Col. Alfred Capel-Cure, Blake Hall,  
sale, London, Sotheby's, 29 April 1885 (part of lot 1024), to E. Parsons and Sons, London;
Earl of Ranfurly;
with P.& D. Colnaghi and Co. Ltd.;
with Richard Owen;
Duc de Talleyrand;
with Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1952 (Tiepolo et Guardi, cat. no. 45);
British Rail Pension Fund;
sale, New York, Sotheby's, 9 January 1996, lot 22; acquired at the sale 

Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Art Museums, and New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Tiepolo and his Circle: Drawings in American Collections, 1996-97, no. 111

A. Morassi, Dessins Vénitiens...de la Collection du Duc de Talleyrand, Milan 1958, no. 25, reproduced;
A.L. Clark (ed), Mastery and Elegance, Two Centuries of French Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz, Cambridge 1998, p. 84, fig. 11

Window mounted. Lightly foxed throughout. Light creases towards top right corner. Otherwise extremely good and fresh.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

As Bernard Aikema has noted,¹ the highly distinctive and extremely evocative washed red chalk technique seen here was one that Giambattista used repeatedly in his early career.  The present drawing is, however, universally thought to be a much later work, dating from the period between Tiepolo's return from Würzburg in 1753 and his departure for Madrid in 1762.  It belongs to a series of picturesque studies of heads, many of which served as studies for a series of sixty etchings entitled Raccolta di teste, which was published pothumously by Domenico in 1773-74.  This beautifully lit study, which Aikema understandably described as one of the most attractive drawings in the group, was not, however reproduced in the print series.

Representations of dramatic, foreign personages were extremely popular with eighteenth-century collectors.  Indeed, this exoticism was a tradition that went back at least a century, to paintings, drawings and prints by artists such as Rembrandt and Castiglione.  This sheet was one of at least ninety-three studies of fantastic heads by Tiepolo -- mostly drawn with pen and brown wash -- that were originally bound in the same album as the artist's famous series of seventy-six studies of the Holy Family (see lot 84). That album was in turn just one of nine such volumes sold as a single lot in the Cheney sale in 1885.  Two of the volumes were purchased in the same year by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, another was acquired by Pierpoint Morgan in 1910, and the rest were dispersed.  

Although the head studies from the Cheney album are now widely scattered, they are documented in the photographic archive of the Paris dealer Richard Owen, which is now in the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University.  From these photographs, it can be seen that only a very few of the drawings were executed in the technique seen here, with its bold, deep red chalk work, and dashing red wash.  One other example is the Head of a Bearded Man, in Harvard's Fogg Art Museum,² but the present work is the only Tiepolo drawing of this type to have appeared on the market in modern times.

1. Tiepolo and his Circle, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 294, under no. 110

2. Tiepolo and his Circle, loc. cit., no. 110