XV - Works On Paper - Marty de Cambiaire (English)

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Venice 1696 – Madrid 1770
15
A Sheet of Studies of a Foot, a Profile Head and Two Bottles, recto; Studies of Hands, verso
Black chalk heightened with white chalk on buff paper (recto); black chalk (verso)
Inscribed Piazetta at upper left and numbered 24 at lower right
282 x 225 mm (11 1 /8 x 8 7 /8 in.)
PROVENANCE
Sale, London, Christie’s, 8 December 1981, lot 66
(as attributed to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.)
The distinctive inscription giving this drawing to
Piazzetta both emphasises the fact that it is an early
work by Giambattista, clearly showing the strong
influence of the older master and identifies the sheet
as belonging to a group of sixteen known studies all
presumably coming from an album as they mostly
bear the same inscription and type of numbering.
Five of these sheets are in the Accademia Carrara,
Bergamo, four of which were published by Professor
Ugo Ruggieri as being studies for Giambattista’s
frescoes in the gallery of the Archbishop’s palace
in Udine, painted in 1726. Moreover, Professor
George Knox pointed out to the previous owner
that the head of a youth studied on the present sheet
could perhaps relate to that of an angel in one of
these frescoes The Angel appearing to Sarah. 1
Two further examples from this series were
discussed at length by Professor Bernard Aikema
in his catalogue to the exhibition Tiepolo and His
Circle, held in 1996-97 (Harvard University Art
Museums and The Pierpont Morgan Library New
York). 2 Stating that the drawings can only be the
work of Giambattista Tiepolo given their style and
technique, Professor Aikema notes that, as they
cannot be tied unequivocally to Giambattista’s
painted oeuvre, they are most likely to have been
executed at Tiepolo’s drawing classes as indeed
was earlier suggested by Ruggieri. Tiepolo may
have begun to study in the Academy fashion under
Piazzetta at his Scuola di Nudo, at which sessions
were fashioned on the model of the Carracci’s
Accademia degli Incamminati where particular
emphasis had been given to copying anatomical
details, hands, feet and ears as well as objects of
still life. Aikema proposes that Tiepolo actually
produced an instructional sketchbook (of which
this sheet would have formed a part) and that he
may have planned to publish the sketchbook in
imitation of the successful but out-dated drawing
manuals published in the 16 th century. In the present
sheet, as well as in those discussed by Professor
Aikema, it is clear that Giambattista’s interest, even
at this early date, was as much in the effects of light
and shade as on form and foreshortening which
he probably learnt from Piazzetta. This reminds us
that Tiepolo had decided to leave the workshop of
his first master, Gregorio Lazzarini, as he ‘differed
from his diligent manner’ and, as Vincenzo Canal
tells: ‘full of spirit and energy, he had adopted a
rapid and decisive one’ 3 . This drawing practice
combining precision and at the same time power
and realism was certainly one of the pillars of
this transition period and Tiepolo undoubtedly
found in Giambattista Piazzetta, a draughtsman
of incontestable talent, a master who could better
fulfil his expectations.
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