With over 300 drawings by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo, this collection is one of the standouts at the Morgan Library and Museum. John Marciari, Charles W. Engelhard Curator of Drawings and Prints, takes a close look at two beloved 18th-century "Punchinello" drawings by Domenico Tiepolo.
Giambattista Tiepolo was one of the last great fresco painters of the Venetian Republic and a prodigious artist of the Rococo era. His masterful frescoes adorned churches and palaces across Venice and Europe with scenes depicted in a distinctively luminous, atmospheric style. Tiepolo's best known works include the ceiling frescoes at the Würzburg Residence in Germany and the grandiose allegory of The World Ruled by Folly in the Palazzo Clerici in Milan. These Punchinello pieces represent some of Tiepolo’s lesser-known but equally engaging work.