Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804)

From the Large Biblical Series, executed by Domenico on his return to Venice from Spain in 1770. James Byam Shaw estimated that Domenico may have produced as many as 250 of these impressive, pictorially composed sheets which he described as 'album drawings, intended not as studies for paintings or etchings but as works of art in their own right', J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, 1962, pp. 36-7.
The largest single group, 138 sheets, is preserved in a folio volume, known as Receuil Fayet, at the Louvre (R.F. 1713bis). Bequeathed to the Louvre in 1889, the drawings had been acquired by M. Fayet in Venice in 1833. The present sheet is from another large group in the collection of Roger Cormier in Tours and sold at auction on 30 April 1921. Other Cormier sheets were sold at Christie's New York, 9 January 1991, lot 26, 30 January 1997, lot 83 and in these Rooms 6 July 1993, lot 93a.