Image

A red and white chalk study of Vittoria’s marble bust of Guilio Contarini. Contarini is seen in profile, his flowing beard and hair merging with the white of the page.
A red and white chalk study of Vittoria’s marble bust of Guilio Contarini. Contarini is seen in profile, his flowing beard and hair merging with the white of the page.
A red and white chalk study of Vittoria’s marble bust of Guilio Contarini. Contarini is seen in profile, his flowing beard and hair merging with the white of the page.
Previous image 1 2 3 / 3 Next image

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Study after Alessandro Vittoria's Bust of Giulio Contarini

Description

Maker

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696-1770)

Title

Study after Alessandro Vittoria's Bust of Giulio Contarini

Year

ca. 1743

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Materials

chalk, white heightening

Supports

Dimensions

Sheet: 23.3 x 16.8 cm (9 3/16 x 6 5/8 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Museum Works of Art Fund

Object Number

48.427

Type

Provenance

. . . - 1882, Collection of Bossi-Beyerlen, Stuttgart.

1882, Sale Bossi-Beyerlen auction, Stuttgart, on 03/27/1882, Lot 443.

. . . - 1927, Collection of Dr. Hans Wendland, Lugano.

. . . - 1948, Collection of Philip Hofer, Cambridge, MA, [1898-1984].

1948, Purchased by the RISD Museum from Philip Hofer on 11/30/1948.

Projects & Publications

Publications

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Drawing Closer
Four Hundred Years of Drawing from the RISD Museum
Mar 12, 2022 – Sep 04, 2022

Label copy

This close-up study of an older man gazing intently to the left was not based on a live model, but on a terra-cotta sculpture. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo kept the bust in his studio and made a number of drawings after it, studying the features from different angles and distances. These drawn exercises reveal that Tiepolo used the three-dimensional sculpture as a convenient means of sharpening his ability to observe and increasing his familiarity with the anatomy of the human head from various perspectives.

Old Master Drawings
Sep 02, 1983 – Oct 16, 1983
Venetian Drawings and Prints of the 18th Century
Jan 12, 1967 – Feb 05, 1967
Italian Drawings from the Museum's Collection
Mar 17, 1961 – Apr 16, 1961

Use & Feedback

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696-1770)
Study after Alessandro Vittoria's Bust of Giulio Contarini, ca. 1743
Red and white chalk on blue laid paper
Sheet: 23.3 x 16.8 cm (9 3/16 x 6 5/8 inches)
Museum Works of Art Fund 48.427

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.