GIOVANNI DOMENICO TIEPOLO | OWLS ON A ROCKY PERCH

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (L.5184),

sale, Leipzig, C.G. Boerner, 29 April 1931, part of lot 244;

Dan Fellows Platt (1873-1938), Englewood, N.J. (L.750a);

Winslow (1907-1990) and Anna Ames, Sauderstown, R.I. (L.2602a),

thence by descent

This is a fine example of one of Tiepolo's animal drawings, depicting owls on a rocky perch. It belongs to the series of studies in which the artist placed animals on a trompe l'oeil ledge; see also lot 59, below. James Byam Shaw suggests that these may have been preliminary studies for the frescoes at the Tiepolo villa at Zianigo, near Padua. He speculates that after the artist's return from Spain in the autumn of 1770 he was planning to execute a frieze of animal subjects to run continuously round the upper part of one or more of the villa's rooms.¹

1. J. Byam Shaw, 'The Remaining Frescoes in the Villa Tiepolo at Zianigo', The Burlington Magazine, vol. CI, 1959, pp. 391-95