Giambattista Tiepolo Punchinello and his Lady before 1770 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Giambattista Tiepolo Three Angels before 1770 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Giambattista Tiepolo Lady with a high collar before 1770 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
Giambattista Tiepolo Aeolus and Diana before 1770 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Giambattista Tiepolo Bacchus and Fauns before 1770 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Giambattista Tiepolo The Flight into Egypt ca. 1725-35 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
Giambattista Tiepolo Ceiling Design with Triumph of Hercules before 1770 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Giambattista Tiepolo Villa in the Veneto 1757-59 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"There are three thousand or more surviving Tiepolo drawings. They vary widely in type, function and medium, but from about 1730 two types predominate. One is the sketch in ink [examples above], and the other is the chalk study [examples below]. The chalk drawings – black or red chalk, often on blue paper, with white highlighting – are usually from a quite late stage of preparation: some are studies from life of arms, hands, drapery and other important details, and some are finished drawing of groups of figures carried out with little variation in the fresco cycles. But by the time Tiepolo turned to chalk, a general design had usually been fixed. It is the sketches in pen and wash that seem to offer most insight into the early stages of invention. Not all the pen-and-wash drawings are directly related to painting projects, in fact: there is a whole class of pretty collectibles of such subjects as the Virgin and Child and the Flight into Egypt, a class of single caricature figures, a wonderful class of views of country architecture in the Veneto, and others. But a high proportion of the pen-and-wash drawings are in one way or another preparatory for painting. They may not have been entirely private meditations – indeed, they survived because collected, or carefully kept as part of the resource of the workshop – but they are often untidy, un-pretty, elliptical, functional explorations of pictorial problems Tiepolo was addressing."
– from Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence, Svetlana Alpers and Michael Baxandall (Yale University Press, 1994)
Giambattista Tiepolo Head of a Youth before 1770 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Giambattista Tiepolo Head of a Satyr as Mask ca. 1750 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Giambattista Tiepolo Fallen Angel ca. 1752 drawing Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Giambattista Tiepolo Soldier with Sword ca. 1750 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
Giambattista Tiepolo Man wearing a Cloak ca. 1750 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
Giambattista Tiepolo Roman Soldier ca. 1720-22 drawing Princeton University Art Museum |
Giambattista Tiepolo Eagle before 1770 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
attributed to Giambattista Tiepolo Study of Right Hand before 1770 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |