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Lot Essay
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s œuvre comprises a large number of caricatures, often humorous in nature yet simultaneously sympathetic to their subjects, as is the case in this drawing and the following lot. The caricatures occasionally depict specific individuals, but more frequently represent types, such as noblemen or priests, with the subject often seen from behind.
A large group of caricatures was bound in an album which included 106 caricatures in the collection of Arthur Kay in Edinburgh, who sold them at Christie’s, London, 9 April 1943, lot 244. That album was titled Tomo terzo de caricature, indicating that there had been two other albums with such caricatures. As noted by Michael Levey, the 1854 catalogue of the Algarotti-Corniani Collection listed ‘due grossi libri [containing] una copiosa collezione di disegni umoristici del Tiepolo’ (see M. Levey, ‘Two Footnotes to any Tiepolo Monograph’, The Burlington Magazine, CIV, no. 708 (March 1962), p. 119). Another large group belonged to the Conti Valmarana in Vicenza. Drawings from this group had their corners cut like the present drawing and the following lot. Fifteen caricatures, also with cut corners, are in the Robert Lehman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see J. Byam Shaw and G. Knox, The Robert Lehman Collection. Italian Eighteenth-Century Drawings, New York, 1987, no. 97-111, ill.).
A large group of caricatures was bound in an album which included 106 caricatures in the collection of Arthur Kay in Edinburgh, who sold them at Christie’s, London, 9 April 1943, lot 244. That album was titled Tomo terzo de caricature, indicating that there had been two other albums with such caricatures. As noted by Michael Levey, the 1854 catalogue of the Algarotti-Corniani Collection listed ‘due grossi libri [containing] una copiosa collezione di disegni umoristici del Tiepolo’ (see M. Levey, ‘Two Footnotes to any Tiepolo Monograph’, The Burlington Magazine, CIV, no. 708 (March 1962), p. 119). Another large group belonged to the Conti Valmarana in Vicenza. Drawings from this group had their corners cut like the present drawing and the following lot. Fifteen caricatures, also with cut corners, are in the Robert Lehman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see J. Byam Shaw and G. Knox, The Robert Lehman Collection. Italian Eighteenth-Century Drawings, New York, 1987, no. 97-111, ill.).