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

Punchinellos at a fruit and vegetable stall

Details
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice 1727-1804)
Punchinellos at a fruit and vegetable stall
signed ‘Dom.o Tiepolo f’ (lower right) and numbered, probably by the artist, ‘51’ (in the border, upper left)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, watermark three crescents (cf. Heawood 867)
13 ½ x 18 ¼ in. (34.3 x 46.4 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. 53, note 5 and p. 57, 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. S47, ill.
G. Knox, ‘Domenico Tiepolo’s Punchinello Drawings: Satire, or Labor of Love?’, in Satire in the Eighteenth Century, New York and London, 1983, p. 144, no. 51.
A.M. Gealt, Domenico Tiepolo. The Punchinello Drawings, New York, 1986, no. 48, 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. 51 [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. RBF128 (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. 131 (catalogue by B. Ford).
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, and Birmingham, Museum and Art Gallery, Eighteenth Century Venice, 1951, no. 138j (note by F.J.B. Watson).
Venice, Palazzo Giardini, Mostra del Tiepolo, 1951, p. 188, no. 143 or 144 (catalogue by G. Lorenzetti).
Venice, Palazzo Ducale, and Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Canaletto & Venezia, 2018-2019, no. VII.19, ill. [French edition titled Éblouissante Venise. Venise, les arts et l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle].

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Henry Pettifer
Henry Pettifer

Lot Essay

Several drawings depict Punchinellos doing business (see Gealt, op. cit., 1986, nos. 43, 46, 47, 48); this sheet is one of the most colourful. The stall at this market overflows with apples, gourds and melons, while at left two Punchinellos ‘examine a different kind of melon on a female companion. Her indifference to their familiarity suggests that she is a vendor of another sort’ (ibid., p. 120). A very similar pair of Punchinello appears in one of the roughly contemporary frescoes made by Domenico Tiepolo for the family villa at Zianigo, now at the Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice (see fig. 3).

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