Caricature of a Sleeping Man

The vast majority of Giambattista Tiepolo's surviving drawings were preserved in his studio and eventually mounted in albums bearing such descriptive titles as Vari pensieri (Various Studies), Sole figure vestite (Single Draped Figures), and Sole figure per softi (Single Figures for Ceilings). This particular sheet evidently belonged to another such album, Tomo terzo di caricature (Third Volume of Caricatures). Many of the artist's drawings eventually were inherited by his son Domenico, who toward the end of his life adapted Caricature of a Sleeping Man for the figure of the protagonist in The Last Illness of Punchinello (inv. no. 2017.258). --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"