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Lot Essay
In the second half of the 1780s, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo embarked on his most extensive project as a draftsman, a series of over three hundred large drawings illustrating the New Testament. Drawing on various literary sources – not only the Bible, but also the Golden Legend, the apocryphal gospels, and the Meditationes Vitae Christi of Saint Bonaventure - Tiepolo offers a theatrical and powerful vision of the holy narrative.
This series of drawings is one of three major graphic narrative cycles produced by the artist late in his career, with the others being the Punchinello series and the Scenes of Contemporary Life, each totaling about one hundred sheets. These series were intended as independent works of art, not as studies for works in other media, and can be considered among the most successful in the artist’s œuvre. In general, but particularly with the New Testament series, Domenico worked in a very systematic way, maintaining a consistent quality, signing almost every sheet and providing the drawings with neat framing lines. The artist used large sheets of paper, first drawing the essential elements of the composition in black chalk or charcoal and then executing the finished drawings with pen and ink and golden-brown washes, reserving the white of the paper for highlights.
The drawings remained with the artist and were dispersed after his death in 1804. In 1893, Jean Fayet Durand (1806-1889) bequeathed to the Louvre Museum an album with 138 sheets of the series which he had acquired in Venice in 1833 (Recueil Fayet). Another batch of 175 sheets had been purchased, probably around the same time in Italy, by Victor Luzarche (1803-1896), mayor of Tours. It is to this second group that the present drawing belongs.
The story of the healing of the two blind men is narrated twice in the Gospel by Matthew (9:27 and 20:30-34). Two blind men who were sitting by the road cried out asking for mercy when they heard that Jesus was passing by. Jesus had compassion for them and, once he touched their eyes, they were able to see and followed him. Together with details taken from the Scriptures, such as the setting of the scene outside the walls of the city, Tiepolo added elements like the donkey with the beautiful stiped blanket on its back which shows his boundless creative imagination and facility of invention.
This series of drawings is one of three major graphic narrative cycles produced by the artist late in his career, with the others being the Punchinello series and the Scenes of Contemporary Life, each totaling about one hundred sheets. These series were intended as independent works of art, not as studies for works in other media, and can be considered among the most successful in the artist’s œuvre. In general, but particularly with the New Testament series, Domenico worked in a very systematic way, maintaining a consistent quality, signing almost every sheet and providing the drawings with neat framing lines. The artist used large sheets of paper, first drawing the essential elements of the composition in black chalk or charcoal and then executing the finished drawings with pen and ink and golden-brown washes, reserving the white of the paper for highlights.
The drawings remained with the artist and were dispersed after his death in 1804. In 1893, Jean Fayet Durand (1806-1889) bequeathed to the Louvre Museum an album with 138 sheets of the series which he had acquired in Venice in 1833 (Recueil Fayet). Another batch of 175 sheets had been purchased, probably around the same time in Italy, by Victor Luzarche (1803-1896), mayor of Tours. It is to this second group that the present drawing belongs.
The story of the healing of the two blind men is narrated twice in the Gospel by Matthew (9:27 and 20:30-34). Two blind men who were sitting by the road cried out asking for mercy when they heard that Jesus was passing by. Jesus had compassion for them and, once he touched their eyes, they were able to see and followed him. Together with details taken from the Scriptures, such as the setting of the scene outside the walls of the city, Tiepolo added elements like the donkey with the beautiful stiped blanket on its back which shows his boundless creative imagination and facility of invention.