Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)
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Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)

Punchinellos playing battledore and shuttlecock

Details
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)
Punchinellos playing battledore and shuttlecock
signed ‘Domo Tiepolo f’ (lower right) and numbered, probably by the artist, '28' (altered by a later hand into '29') (in the border, upper left)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, watermark crown with letters GAF (cf. Heawood 877)
13 5/8 x 18 3/8 in. (34.5 x 46.5 cm)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; London, Sotheby’s, 6 July 1920, part of lot 41 (where bought by Colnaghi for £610).
with Colnaghi, London, by whom sold, January 1921, to the following
with Richard Owen, Paris, by whom broken up and sold individually through Matthiesen, 24 March 1937, for £70 to
Brinsley, later Sir Brinsley, Ford (1908-1999).
Literature
J. Byam Shaw, The Drawings of Domenico Tiepolo, London, 1962, p. 56, note 2.
M.E. Vetrocq, Domenico Tiepolo’s Punchinello Drawings, exhib. cat., Bloomington, Indiana University Art Museum and Stanford University Art Museum, 1979-1980, no. S13, ill.
A.M. Gealt, Domenico Tiepolo. The Punchinello Drawings, New York, 1986, no. 17, ill. [French edition: Gian Domenico Tieopolo. Dessins de Polichinelle, Arcueil, 1986].
A.M. Gealt and G. Knox, Domenico Tiepolo, Master Draftsman, exhib. cat., Udine, Castello di Udine, and Bloomington, Indiana University Art Museum, 1996-1997, p. 245, no. 29 [Italian edition titled Giandomenico Tiepolo. Maestria e gioco. Disegni dal mondo].
B. Ford, ‘The Ford Collection’, Walpole Society, LX, II, 1998, pp. 99-101, no. RBF122 (catalogued by F. Russell).
Exhibited
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Dessins de G.D. Tiepolo, 1921 (without catalogue).
Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exhibition of Works of Art from the Ford Collection, 1946, no. 128 (catalogue by Brinsley Ford).
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, and Birmingham, Museum and Art Gallery, Eighteenth Century Venice, 1951, no. 138c (note by F.J.B. Watson).
Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Tiepolo. Ironia e comico, 2004, pp. 185, 187, n. 28, no. 132, ill. (note by A.M. Gealt).
Venice, Palazzo Ducale, and Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Canaletto & Venezia, 2019, no. VII.12, ill. [French edition titled Éblouissante Venise. Venise, les arts et l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle].

Brought to you by

Henry Pettifer
Henry Pettifer

Lot Essay

The game battledore and shuttlecock – named after the racquet and projectile used in it – is a predecessor of badminton, named after the house where the game seems first to have been played in England in the middle of the nineteenth century. This delightful depiction of one of the pleasures of Punchinello’s childhood is similar to one representing a birthday party, now at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island (inv. 1987.017; see Gealt, op. cit., 1986, no. 82): included in both drawings are the same table, dogs, and company, including the woman with hat seen here framing the composition at right. Adelheid Gealt titled a sheet also in Providence ‘The badminton victory’ as it includes two battledores and a shuttlecock lying on the floor (op. cit., 1986, no. 18). The lower number (24) at upper left, however, probably indicates it precedes the present sheet in the storyline.

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