From Taddeo to Tiepolo: The Dr. John O’Brien Collection of Old Master Drawings
From Taddeo to Tiepolo: The Dr. John O’Brien Collection of Old Master Drawings
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
St. Mark and an Angel
Auction Closed
January 27, 09:35 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Venice 1696 - 1770 Madrid
St. Mark and an Angel
Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk
210 by 298 mm; 8 1/4 by 11 3/4 in
sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 10-11 May 1926, part of lot 231;
Sasha Guitry, Paris;
with H. Shickman Gallery, New York;
sale, New York, Christie's, 23 January 2002, lot 46
In 1762, at the age of sixty-six, Giambattista Tiepolo took the bold step of abandoning his native city, and moving to Madrid, where the prospects for important commissions seemed at that time better. Indeed, his first project on arrival was to decorate for King Carlos III the immense ceiling of the Throne Room in the Royal Palace.
Other Spanish commissions followed, the last of which, received in 1769, was for the decorations of the vault of the Collegiate Church of Sant'Ildefonso at La Granja. On 27 March 1770, however, Tiepolo died suddenly, at the age of seventy-four, without completing the project, which was taken over by Francisco Bayeu (1734-1795). This confident, late drawing, stylistically similar to others in the Prado, appears to be a study for one of the unrealised pendentives in the dome at La Granja.