Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venice 1696-1770 Madrid)

This drawing is one of about seventy the artist made in this format of the Holy Family. The drawings were originally kept in an album and it is believed that Tiepolo or his son Lorenzo gave multiple albums of his drawings to the Library of the Convent of Somasco in Venice around the time he left for Madrid in 1762. By the mid-19th century after having passed through several Italian collections including that of the sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the albums were documented as belonging to the great English collector, Edward Cheney (1803-1884). The albums were sold and probably partly dismembered after their sale in 1885. In 1928 an album of the drawings which included mainly variations of the Holy Family subject were exhibited and sold at Savile Gallery, London. Drawings from these albums, whether kept together or sold in groups or individual sheets are the basis for nearly every important private and public collection of Tiepolo drawings that were assembled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Albums are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Morgan Library, New York.