Beschreibung:

GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO (ITALIAN 1696-1770) A LARGE GROUP OF PUNCHINELLI Pen, ink and wash 23.9 x 37.5cm (9¼ x 14¾ in.) Provenance: The Henry Oppenheimer Collection Sale, Christie's, The Henry Oppenheimer Collection, 14th September, 1936, lot 185 (A) (part lot) Where purchased by Sir Osbert Sitwell, 5th Bt. And thence by descent. Literature: G. Knox, 'Domenico Tiepolo's Punchinello Drawings: Satire, or Labor of Love?' in Satire in the Eighteenth Century, (J.D. Browning Ed.) New York, 1983, p. 138, fig. 5. G. Knox, 'The Punchinello drawings of Giambattista Tiepolo', in Interpretazioni Veneziane studi de storia dell'arte in oncore di Michelangelo Muraro, (D. Rosand Ed.) Venezia 1984, p. 441, fig.5. V. Sears Goldman, April 2012, 'The Most Beautiful Punchinelli in the World': A comprehensive Study of the Punchinello Drawings of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, (unpublished doctoral dissertation), Princeton University, New Jersey, pp. 390-393, no. 4, fig. 4. We are grateful for Professor Bernard Aikema for confirming the authenticity of this work from a photograph. Catalogue Note: This drawing is from a distinctive group of documented Punchinello drawings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770); related drawings by Tiepolo of the same period, depicting large groups of Punchinelli include: A large group of Punchinelli cooking (École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, no. 393); A large group of Punchinelli (private collection, Zurich); Punchinelli preparing a meal of gnocchi and parmesan cheese (Baron Dominique Vivant Denon; Vivant-Denon-sale, Pérignon, Paris, 1-19 May 1826, lot 543; most recently, Christie's, New York, 31 January 2013, lot 75, USD 542,500 inc. premium) (Sears Goldman, op. cit., pp. 393-397, no. 5; pp. 420-422, no. 10; pp. 423-429, no. 11). Punchinello was the buffoon character of the 17th century commedia dell'arte, a subject that Tiepolo embraced from the late 1720s through to the early 1760s, primarily in drawings, executing about thirty-six, but also in at least two paintings, and etchings. Tiepolo's interest in Punchinello was most likely stimulated when he was in Verona working on the illustrations for Scipione Maffei's Verona Illustrata (c. 1725). The drawing offered here dates from the early 1730s; it retains the fine delicate line of the earlier drawings but includes two tones of painterly wash, the wash less evenly applied than in slightly later drawings (Sears Goldman, op. cit., p. 376). Tiepolo, in contrast to his son Domenico, who shows Punchinelli engaged in everyday activities in his Divertimento per li Regazzi, portrays his Punchinelli making and eating gnocchi, and suffering from the excesses of overindulgence. The subject derives from a regional festival, venerdì gnoccolare, which took place in Verona on the last Friday of Carnival. Young boys from the poorest district of San Zeno, dressed up in costume, and gathered at the Palazzo del Podestà to invite the mayor to the town square for a glass of wine and a plate of gnocchi, followed by a town fiesta of eating and drinking until dawn. This drawing depicts a jumbled group of Punchinelli; two figures on the right are engaged in the cooking and presentation of gnocchi, but most have surrendered to the gnoccolonità that affects unlucky Punchinelli after the feast - several are drunken or ill (Sears Goldman, op. cit., p. 390). Some of the figures in this drawing can be found in other Tiepolo Punchinello drawings. For example, to the left of the drawing is a prostrate Punchinello with a protruding stomach lying on top of his hat; a similar Punchinello is depicted in Drunken Punchinello in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens (M.P. 975-6) and Two Punchinelli in the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice (30.082). The Punchinello slumped over on the ground in the centre of the present drawing has its counterpart in Punchinelli cooking gnocchi (formerly Tito Miotti, Udine) and Three Punchinelli gathered around a gnocchi pot (Kennedy Onassis estate sale, Sotheby's, New York, 24 April 199