Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Jean de Cayeux de Sénarpont (1913-2009), Paris (L.4461);

Kurt Meissner (1909-2004), Zürich (L.4665/L.4666);

Sale, London, Christie's, 3 July 1990, lot 90;

Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 26 January 2000, lot 83;

Where acquired.

Udine, Villa Manin, Mostra del Tiepolo, 1971, cat.77;

Geneva, Musée d'art et d'histoire, Art Vénitien en Suisse et au Liechtenstein, 1978, cat. 134, reproduced.

Although the present work, executed in the artist's quintessential and highly distinctive combination of energetic black chalk under drawing and deftly applied golden brown washes, may be compared in subject with his extensive series of more than a hundred drawings on this theme,¹ there are some noticeable differences that make the Younger drawing a far greater rarity within Giandomenico's graphic oeuvre.

While the aforementioned series of drawings of St. Anthony of Padua typically measure in the region of 250 by 180 mm, our drawing is significantly larger, at almost four times the size. At this impressive scale and based on the drawing's stylistic qualities the Younger sheet has more in common with Giandomenico's monumental so-called Large Biblical Series,² which like the present work are executed with a vigor and bravura that can be more readily seen and appreciated in these larger drawings.

Giandomenico's profound interest in the theme of St. Anthony of Padua may have been inspired by his father's altarpiece of the subject painted in his last years for the church of San Pascual at Aranjuez, part of a commission for seven paintings possibly executed with the help of his sons. The subject had, however, also been very popular with Spanish artists of the seventeenth century.

1. see J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London 1962, pp. 34-35

2. see A.M. Gealt and G. Knox, Domenico Tiepolo: A New Testament, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2006