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Lot Essay
Striking for its exceptional scale and quality, this drawing is an important addition to the artist’s drawn œuvre. Because the powerful and dramatic composition – with Christ on the cross, Mary fainting at its feet, and a Roman soldier offering Jesus a sponge soaked in vinegar – was never finished, the drawing also provides an insight into the artist’s working method. The composition was first carefully drawn with black chalk and then progressively, from top to bottom, worked up with multiple, overlapping layers of brown wash in lighter and darker shades. With exceptional mastery, Tiepolo made use of reserves, leaving uncovered parts of the white paper to reflect the areas of the scene directly hit by light.
For its style, format, and technique the drawing can be connected with a group of similarly large and highly finished sheets by Tiepolo, often religious in subject, today in several museums (see B. Aikema, Tiepolo and His Circle. Drawings in American Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums, and New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, 1996-1997, nos. 9, 11-13, 15, 17, 20, 21, ill.). Particularly close in size and execution are two works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Beheading of Saints Nazarius and Celsus in Milan (inv. 37.165.14), and the Beheading of a male and a female saint (inv. 37.165.15; see Aikema, op. cit., nos. 20, 21, ill.). It is easy to imagine the degree of finish to which the present sheet was intended to be brought.
Because of their execution and scale, all of these works can be considered independent works of art, possibly made as gifts or destined for the art market. They have traditionally been dated to Tiepolo’s early years, between the end of the 1720s and the first part of the 1730s, when his graphic production reflects the influence of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta’s works. However, it is important to remind oneself that an exact chronology of Tiepolo’s extensive corpus of drawings still deserves full scholarly assessment.
The composition was treated by the artist in a rapidly executed pen sketch at the Harvard Art Museums (inv. 1975.74) showing only minor differences in the figures flanking the Cross (fig. 1; see Aikema, op. cit., no. 17, ill.). Although this drawing has been connected with Tiepolo’s large Crucifixion painted for the church of San Martino in Burano around 1723, this connection is not convincing (for the painting, see M. Gemin and F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo. I dipinti. Opera completa, Venice, 1993, no. 61, ill.). While the painted and drawn compositions are not strictly related, the Harvard sheet can also be considered, on the basis of its style, an early work by Tiepolo. Instead, the Harvard sheet can be considered a compositional sketch for the dramatic Crucifixion presented here.
Fig. 1. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Crucifixion of Christ. Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge.
For its style, format, and technique the drawing can be connected with a group of similarly large and highly finished sheets by Tiepolo, often religious in subject, today in several museums (see B. Aikema, Tiepolo and His Circle. Drawings in American Collections, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums, and New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, 1996-1997, nos. 9, 11-13, 15, 17, 20, 21, ill.). Particularly close in size and execution are two works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Beheading of Saints Nazarius and Celsus in Milan (inv. 37.165.14), and the Beheading of a male and a female saint (inv. 37.165.15; see Aikema, op. cit., nos. 20, 21, ill.). It is easy to imagine the degree of finish to which the present sheet was intended to be brought.
Because of their execution and scale, all of these works can be considered independent works of art, possibly made as gifts or destined for the art market. They have traditionally been dated to Tiepolo’s early years, between the end of the 1720s and the first part of the 1730s, when his graphic production reflects the influence of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta’s works. However, it is important to remind oneself that an exact chronology of Tiepolo’s extensive corpus of drawings still deserves full scholarly assessment.
The composition was treated by the artist in a rapidly executed pen sketch at the Harvard Art Museums (inv. 1975.74) showing only minor differences in the figures flanking the Cross (fig. 1; see Aikema, op. cit., no. 17, ill.). Although this drawing has been connected with Tiepolo’s large Crucifixion painted for the church of San Martino in Burano around 1723, this connection is not convincing (for the painting, see M. Gemin and F. Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo. I dipinti. Opera completa, Venice, 1993, no. 61, ill.). While the painted and drawn compositions are not strictly related, the Harvard sheet can also be considered, on the basis of its style, an early work by Tiepolo. Instead, the Harvard sheet can be considered a compositional sketch for the dramatic Crucifixion presented here.
Fig. 1. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Crucifixion of Christ. Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge.