A centaur and a satyress at play

This charming scene comes from a series of studies of centaurs and satyrs, which James Byam Shaw described as 'the most delightful and original of all Domenico's allegorical and mythological subjects' (The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London, 1962, p. 41). The drawings were apparently executed as independent works of art, although they can be linked with themes which appeared in Domenico's mature painted works. In 1759 he painted a decorative cycle showing satyrs for the Zianigo family's country villa, in a room afterwards known as the Camera dei Satiri, while, some thirty years later, he executed another mythological scheme for the same family representing scenes of centaurs (1791; both fresco cycles now in the Ca' Rezzonico, Venice). Byam Shaw has suggested that the present series may date from between these two fresco cycles, perhaps to around 1770.