Giandomenico Tiepolo (Venezia, 1727 - Venezia, 1804) - Tre Pulcinella

Pen, ink and pencil on paper, 19.4x24.2 cm. The drawing, hitherto unpublished, is part of a group of sheets evoking the popular figure of Punchinello, which was made by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo to be taken up later by his son Domenico. Apparently, Giovan Battista, began producing drawn images of Punchinello in the 1740s. Our drawing bears a strong resemblance to a print by German engraver Georg Friederich Schmidt from a prototype by Tiepolo, depicting Five Punchinellos Making Polenta, which bears the date 1751. The drawing by Giovan Battista on which Schmidt's engraving is based has not reached us, but a sheet by the artist depicting only the figure of Punchinello pissing was published by Knox in 1984 (formerly Paris, Cailleux). Our sheet is a reduced version of the composition fixed in the print, presenting only three of the five figures, of which the rightmost one - the seated Punchinello - corresponds to a motif in another drawing by Giovan Battista Tiepolo, formerly in the Folinoux collection in Paris. The latter drawing was reproduced in a further engraving by Schmidt, also dated 1751. Our drawing thus presents itself as a sort of pastiche of two inventions by Giovan Battista Tiepolo, the quality of the sheet is high, and certain discrepancies between the pencil sketch below and the final pen realization suggest that this is no mere copy. We believe we do not err by assigning the sheet to Domenico Tiepolo, the son of Giovan Battista, who later in his career would make a name for himself with his depictions of Punchinello. It is the scratchy, slightly discontinuous strokes of the outlines and the irregular, slightly nervous watercolor painting that make us think of Domenico's early work rather than his father's. If we have grasped the truth, the drawing takes on a certain importance, being likely, the earliest example in chronological terms, of this theme produced by Domenico, who as a young man as is well known, fed on a large scale from the models drawn by his father. It is difficult to establish a precise chronological placement of the drawing, which could be established around the late 1740s and early 1750s. Bernard Aikema.