Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Zoom image

Download image:

142881v_0001.jpg

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

1727-1804

Monkey Swinging on a Parapet

ca. 1790

Pen and brown ink, and brown-black wash, on paper.

10 x 7 5/8 inches (255 x 193 mm)

Gift of Mrs. Rudolf J. Heinemann, in memory of Dr. Rudolf J. Heinemann.

1996.133

Inscription:

Signed at lower right, in pen and brown ink, "Dom.o Tiepolo".

Provenance:

Maison F.A.C. Prestel, Frankfurt-am-Main (Lugt 2730); sale, Frankfurt-am-Main, 12-13 November, 1918, lot 227, pl. 38; Tomas Harris, London; Dr. Rudolf J. and Lore Heinemann, New York.

Bibliography:

Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Lore and Rudolf Heinemann. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973, no. 115, repr.

Notes:

Watermark: "ROSA" over letter "V". Watermark, beta radiograph, ROSA, letter "VF"? 142881wm_1996_133_WM_beta.tiff
Domenico Tiepolo lifted the motif of the chained monkey from his father's vast fresco in the staircase of the palace of the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg, where the two artists had worked together in the early 1740s. The pair of skeletal monkeys at lower left, however, is the product of the younger artist's imagination. They lend the drawing a bizarre, enigmatic quality consistent with much of his art. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"

Watermark: