Domenico Tiepolo's proficiency as a caricaturist is well exemplified by this sheet, which if it were not signed, might easily be taken for the work of his father, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Above the standing gentleman appears a bouquet of the character heads that occur in many of Domenico's paintings and etchings; at the left border there are sketches of a hand and the tip of a quiver. As Filippo Pedrocco observed in 1990, at least two of the character heads seem to have been preparatory for the series of engraving named "Raccolta di teste" (Collection of heads): the barbed head on the top right corresponds to one in no. 30 and the old man's head on the top left corresponds to one in no. 21 of the "Raccolta di teste" series (see Aldo Rizzi, The Etchings of the Tiepolo, London, 1971, pp. 404-5, no. 221, fig. 221; pp. 396-7, no. 212, fig. 212). As both sheets belong to the second part of the "Raccolta" published after Domenico Tiepolo's return from Spain in 1770, Pedrocco proposed a dating of the drawing - and of the engravings - between 1772 and 1774. Dirk Breiding (2010) has confirmed that the horizontal, phallic, object on the left is not a quiver, as identified by Jacob Bean and other scholars.
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Medium:Pen and dark brown ink, brush and brown wash, over black chalk
Dimensions:10-11/16 x 7-5/16 in. (27.1 x 18.5 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1937
Object Number:37.165.68
Signature: Signed in pen and brown ink at lower right: Domo. Tiepolo f
Guillaume de Gontaut-Biron, marquis de Biron; Guillaume de Gontaut-Biron, marquis de Biron
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Tiepolo and his Contemporaries," March 14–April 24, 1938.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings from New York Collections: Eighteenth Century in Italy," January 30–March 21, 1971.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "18th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18–December 9, 1990.
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. "Tiepolo: Ironia e Comico," September 3, 2004–December 5, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine," September 13, 2011–March 4, 2012.
Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by the Two Tiepolos. Exh. cat., February 4 - March 6. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1938, cat. no. 114.
Harry B. Wehle Tiepolo and His Contemporaries. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1938, cat. no. 74, fig. no. 74, ill.
Walter Mehring European Drawings from the Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Portfolio of Collotype Reproductions [Vol. 1: Italian Drawings; Vol. 2: Flemish, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and British drawings; Vol. 3: "New Series": Italian, Flemish, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and British drawings]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3 vols., New York, 1942–44, cat. no. 60 (vol.1), fig. no. 60, ill.
Giorgio Vigni "Note su Giambattista e Giandomenico Tiepolo" in Emporium. vol. 98, Italy, 1943, fig. no. 10, pp. 23-24, ill.
Max Kozloff "The Caricatures of Giambattista Tiepolo." in Marsyas. vol. 10, 1961, fig. no. 3, p. 22, ill.
James Byam Shaw The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo.. London and Boston, 1962, cat. no. 78, fig. no. 78, p. 90, ill.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 49, fig. no. 49, ill.
Terisio Pignatti I disegni veneziani del Settecento. Treviso, n. d. [1965], cat. no. 118, fig. no. 118, p. 212-13, ill.
Terisio Pignatti I disegni dei maestri: La scuola veneta. Edited by Walter Vitzthum, vol. 1-3, Milan, 1970, fig. no. pl. 35, p. 86, ill.
Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle Drawings from New York Collections, vol. III: Eighteenth Century Italian Drawings. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 1971, cat. no. 247, p. 100, ill.
James Byam Shaw "The Biron Collection of Venetian Eighteenth-Century Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Metropolitan Museum Journal. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 3, New York, 1971, p. 246.
Giorgio Vigni Disegni del Tiepolo. Seconda edizione riveduta e ampliata dall'autore. Trieste, 1972, p. 110.
Jacob Bean, William M. Griswold 18th Century Italian Drawings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, cat. no. 264, fig. no. 264, pp. 264-65, ill.
Filippo Pedrocco Disegni di Giandomenico Tiepolo. Milan, 1990, cat. no. no. 17, fig. no. pl. 17., p. 86, ill.
Linda Wolk-Simon "Domenico Tiepolo. Drawings, Prints, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 54, no. 3, New York, Winter 1996-1997, fig. no. 91, p. 58, ill.
Nadine Orenstein, Constance C. McPhee Infinite Jest: Caricature and Satire from Leonardo to Levine Exh. cat.: September 13, 2011 - March 4, 2012. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven and London, 2011, cat. no. 8, pp. 28-29 (entry by Nadine Orenstein), ill.
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