Lot Essay
This is part of a large series of drawings of Teste di Carattere, which include portraits, heads of apostles and saints and other heads, such as the present one, of mathematicians, philosophers, musicians and hunters, R. Pallucchini and A. Mariuz, L'opera completa del Piazzetta, Milan, 1982, D1-D52, illustrated.
Another Teste di Carattere of a young girl asleep, which bears the same 18th Century inscription to the one on the present drawing, was also sold in the Reitlinger sale, lot 108. It is likely that this and the present study share the same provenance prior to the Reitlinger sale. The young girl, which Knox dates to the 1740s, is now in the Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, G. Knox, Giambattista Piazetta, Oxford, 1992, no. 155, illustrated. A similar inscription appears in another Teste di Carattere, sold in these Rooms, 19 April 1994, lot 105, illustrated.
Another Teste di Carattere of a young girl asleep, which bears the same 18th Century inscription to the one on the present drawing, was also sold in the Reitlinger sale, lot 108. It is likely that this and the present study share the same provenance prior to the Reitlinger sale. The young girl, which Knox dates to the 1740s, is now in the Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, G. Knox, Giambattista Piazetta, Oxford, 1992, no. 155, illustrated. A similar inscription appears in another Teste di Carattere, sold in these Rooms, 19 April 1994, lot 105, illustrated.