Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

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Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

1727-1804

Punchinelli with an Elephant

ca. 1797-1804

Pen and brown ink, with brown and ochre wash, over black chalk, on paper.

11 5/8 x 16 3/16 inches (294 x 411 mm)

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

IV, 151b

Inscription:

Signed at upper center, in pen and brown ink, "Dom.o [o in superscript above period] Tiepolo f."; numbered on verso, in pen and brown ink, "4".
Watermark: three crescents in descending size.

Provenance:

Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.

Bibliography:

Stampfle, Felice, and Jacob Bean. Drawings from New York collections. III: The eighteenth century in Italy. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1971, no. 276, repr.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 34, repr. [Sibylle Weber am Bach]

Notes:

This drawing was once part of Domenico Tiepolo's famous Punchinello series, the Divertimenti per li Ragazzi. Although most of that set of 104 drawings remained together until 1921, this was one of two drawings that had been removed from prior to that time. It is one of several sheets from the series that depict circus scenes with exotic animals. An elephant had been brought to Venice in 1774, but Domenico seems to have based his depiction of the beast on prints by Stefano della Bella and Wenceslaus Hollar.
Not in Fairfax Murray catalog.

Watermark: