Nobility, Liberality and another allegorical figure seated on clouds

Details

GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (VENICE 1696-1770 MADRID)
Nobility, Liberality and another allegorical figure seated on clouds
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, watermark ‘AS’
22.5 x 32.6 cm (8 7/8 x 13 7/8 in.)

Provenance

Marie-Joseph-Adrien Fauchier-Magnan (1873-1965), Cannes.
Richard Brinsley, later Sir Brinsley Ford (1908-1999), London.

Literature

F. Russell, ‘The Ford Collection-II’, in The Walpole Society, LX, 1998, no. RBF115, fig. 35.

Exhibited

Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exhibition of Works of Art from the Ford Collection, 1946, no. 137 (catalogue by B. Ford).
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, and Birmingham, Museum and Art Gallery, Eighteenth Century Venice, 1951, no. 127 (note by F.J.B. Watson).

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Lot Essay

This sheet unites three allegorical figures: Nobility holding a crown in her right hand, Liberality dispensing coins, and a third figure at right. The female figures are portrayed di sotto in sù (from below), as often is the case in Tiepolo’s sketches made for fresco decorations. The same composition, with some variants, appears in another sheet by the artist now at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (inv. IV,112; see Collection J. Pierpont Morgan. Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray, IV, London, 1912, no. 112).

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