One of a series of 108 drawings by Giambattista Tiepolo from an album bearing the title, "TIEPOLO DESSINS ORIGINAUX", inscribed by Edward Cheney, "E.C. Venice 1852 May 31 / bought from the Conte Corniani Algarotti".
This spirited sketch is related to a frescoed ceiling that Giambattista Tiepolo painted in (or about) 1757 in the Palazzo Trento Valmarana, Vicenza. Were it not for photographs of the lost fresco, the connection would be difficult to establish, given the extreme sketchiness of the drawing. The energetic handling of the pen and free application of wash are typical of sheets executed during the years immediately preceding the artist's definitive departure from Venice, for Madrid, in 1762. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
Algarotti, Francesco, conte, 1712-1764, former owner.
Algarotti, Bonomo, 1706-1776, former owner.
Algarotti-Corniani, Maria, former owner.
Corniani, Bernardino, conte, former owner.
Cheney, Edward, 1803-1884, former owner.
Cure, Alfred Capel, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. P. (John Pierpont), 1867-1943, former owner.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, IV, 136.
George Knox, Catalogue of the Tiepolo Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1960, under no. 262.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings from New York Collections III, The 18th Century in Italy, 1971, p. 63, no. 144.