2-694-145 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Capriccio', c1740s, (1928). 'On the left a man, wasted to a skeleton, lying on the ground and reading to a group of people who press in from the right', pen with wash on white paper. First sketch for the etching, 'La Mort donnant Audience' (Death giving audience), from the series of the Capricci which appeared in a collection of Venetian graphic art in 1749. Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Italian Venetian painter and printmaker Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), worked not only in Italy, but also in Germany and Spain. He was commissioned to carry out frescoes in churches and palaces, and was elected President of the Academy of Padua. As well as his large-scale majestic works, he also produced etchings and oil paintings, and is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of the period. Illustration from The Drawings of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Volume I, by Detlev Baron Von Hadeln. [The Pegasus Press, Paris, 1928]