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Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
1726?-1804
The Last Illness of Punchinello
ca. 1797-1804
Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk.
13 13/16 x 18 5/16 inches (351 x 456 mm)
Thaw Collection.
2017.258
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Exhibition label:
Produced at the end of Domenico Tiepolo’s life, this sheet belonged to a sequence, now dispersed, of 104 drawings illustrating the life of Punchinello, a commedia dell’arte character who in Domenico Tiepolo’s series came to represent everyman. This sheet, the ninety-ninth in the series, depicts the death of Punchinello, whose recumbent figure is based upon a caricature by the artist’s father that is exhibited nearby. Both the doctor taking Punchinello’s pulse and the one seated nearby have asses’ ears, emblematic of foolishness.
Inscription:
Numbered at upper left corner, in point of brush and brown ink, "9" contemporary with and possibly by Domenico (according to Vetrocq 1979-83, p. 10). Signed at lower left, "Dom.o Tiepolo f".
Provenance:
Anonymous collection, London; sale, London, Sotheby's, 6 July 1920, part of lot 41; Colnaghi's, London; Richard Owen, Paris, bought on 13 January, 1921 (who from 1921 or 1922 onward, sold drawings in groups and individually); Léonce Suzor, Paris; sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 1965, no. 69Ơ repr.; Robert Lehman, New York (according to Bean [1966]); Galerie l' Oeil, Paris; Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw, New York.
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