Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727–1804) The eldest surviving son of the celebrated 18th-century Venetian painter, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), Giovanni Domenico (Giandomenico) Tiepolo achieved fame in his own right with a series of 104 large drawings that illustrate the colorful life and death of Punchinello, a character from the popular Commedia dell’Arte. From an album entitled Divertimenti per li Ragazzi (Entertainments for Children), these drawings depict Punchinello and his attendants’ inclination towards childish behavior, which makes them at once vulnerable and ridiculous. No known literary text forms the basis for these drawings. The stories were most likely handed down orally, in accordance with the tradition of popular theater, in which actors extemporized and embroidered at will. In all of the depictions, Punchinello, a sly, lazy antihero, wears a white costume, a ruff about his neck, a conical hat, and a black mask with a beaked nose. The proposed drawing portrays at its center the vain-glorious Punchinello seated atop a dromedary with one arm akimbo and the other holding a decorative staff. As he proudly leads a caravan of camels across an arid landscape, Punchinello scouts ahead to a pyramid-like structure which locates this theatrical procession in the Egyptian desert. Punchinello’s companion at right looks back at his master as he ushers along a basket-laden woman and her small child. Meanwhile a mangy dog at left looks out at the viewer as if in disbelief at this procession of fools. By his careful application of golden ink on a brilliant white sheet of paper, Domenico conveys the bright sunlight of the foreign locale, made all the more exotic with the inclusion of palm trees. Using his own etching of the Flight into Egypt as the basis for the composition, Giandomenico draws a playful relationship between the comic scene of Punchinello and the solemn biblical episode. Made at the end of his career and executed solely for his own pleasure and that of others, the sheet is one of the finest examples of Domenico’s ability to render compelling farcical diversions that both mock and charm in the same moment.
Our Cards are all printed on 100% cotton tree-free archival paper. All Cards include a recycled kraft envelope in a protective sleeve individually hand wrapped for you. Each card is printed one at a time and hand bound here in Lugano, Switzerland. We ship all over the world via SwissPost. Please allow 5-9 business days for us to make them and 5-7 business days for transit. Art Prints are printed on heavy matte finish German art paper using the finest Canon archival inks. Frame is black natural with a white mattboard and Acrylite glazing.
Wall Murals are printed on 42" matte finish, self-adhesive Kodak PhotoText fabric panels that combine and mount easily on a non textured wall surface. We can custom make to any size, just ask.
Stretched Canvas is stretched by hand over 1.5" thick pine bars and printed on cotton poly matte finish canvas. Each canvas is hand coated with Hahnemuhle UV/Archive coating, these are Swiss quality best in industry canvases.
All our images are digitized from the original negative, printed and assembled in Switzerland to museum standards by our master printer.
All of our products are popular and custom made by hand to order, please allow 2-4 weeks to make them and 1-2 weeks for shipment anywhere in the world.
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Artwork in this collection is from The J. Paul Getty Museum. Reproduction rights are reserved by the copyright owner and used under license by Archivea GmbH.
