drawing
- Museum number
- 1909,0109.4
- Description
-
Nereids and a triton with a dolphin
Pen and black ink, with grey wash, over black chalk
- Production date
- 1753-1762 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 229 millimetres
-
Width: 401 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Detlev von Hadeln likened this group to the foreground figures in the 'Triumph of Amphitrite' now in Dresden, a canvas painted around 1740 for the Villa Girola at Como, A. Morassi, 'A complete catalogue of the paintings of G. B. Tiepolo, including pictures by his pupils and followers, wrongly attributed to him', London, 1962, p. 11 [not illustrated]. The correspondence between the two groups is not sufficiently alike to link them directly and the drawing may be later as the restless electricity of the pen contours with broadly applied wash is perhaps closest to his pen studies from the 1750s, such as the two of 'Constancy and Fame' in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, (IV, 14-15; J. Bean and F. Stampfle, in exhib. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Drawings from New York Collections III, the eighteenth century in Italy', 1971, nos. 142-3). The subject matter of Nereids and Tritons (D. 1825.30-1885; Knox 1960, no. 248) of a pen study in the Victoria and Albert Museum is somewhat alike to the present one, although the two are unsufficiently close in conception to think they belong together.
The use of black ink and grey wash in the present work is relatively unusual for Giovanni Battista (it was a combination much favoured by his son Domenico) but there are other examples of his employing them for his drawings, as in his early 'Adoration' in the BM (1946,0713.916), the 'Angel at the Tomb' in the Morgan Library (IV, 134; idem no. 148) and for two caricatures formerly belonging to the Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New York,
Lit.: D. von Hadeln, 'Handzeichnungen von G. B. Tiepolo', Florence and Munich, 1927, I, p. 18, pl. 36; G. Knox, 'Catalogue of the Tiepolo Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum', London, 1960, under no. 248
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1909
- Acquisition notes
- 1909.0109.1 to 17 are drawings selected by Colvin from an exhibition held at the gallery of Obach & Co, and were exchanged with Obach for duplicate prints.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1909,0109.4
