From the artist's Large Biblical Series, executed by Domenico on his return to Venice from Spain in 1770, James Byam Shaw estimated that Domenico may have produced as many as 250 of these impressive, pictorially composed subjects which he described as 'album drawings', intended not as studies for painting or etching but as works of art in their own right (J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London, 1962, pp. 36-7)
The largest single group, 138 sheets, is preserved in a folio volume, known as Recueil Fayet in the Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre (R.F. 1713 bis). Bequeathed to the Louvre in 1889, the drawings were acquired by M. Fayet in Venice in 1833 (idem. p. 36)