Description
Observed by Punchinello and friends, a centaur is subdued by a maiden’s musical charms. Rendered touchingly vulnerable, the creature lies with its head on the girl’s lap. One of the simplest instruments, the tambourine was typically played by itinerant musicians—nymphs, vagabonds, seducers—and was traditionally considered the quintessential attribute of the outsider, an aspect reinforced in the 20th century by Bob Dylan’s "Mr. Tambourine Man."
Provenance
[]
Accession Number
1947.12
Medium
pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, over black chalk; framing lines in pen and brown ink over graphite
Dimensions
Sheet: 35.4 x 47.3 cm (13 15/16 x 18 5/8 in.); Image: 29.7 x 41.7 cm (11 11/16 x 16 7/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund
Tags
Drawing Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Ink Graphite & Pencil Italian
Background & Context
Background Story
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804) was a Venetian painter and draftsman, the son of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, known for his pen and wash drawings of genre subjects and entertainments that combine the Venetian decorative tradition with the informality and humor of 18th-century genre painting. The Woman with a Tambourine from the 1790s depicts a female figure dancing with a tambourine in the pen and wash medium that Tiepolo used for his most accomplished genre subjects. The 1790s date places this in Tiepolo's late period, when he was producing the series of genre drawings that are his most original contribution to 18th-century Venetian art.
Cultural Impact
Tiepolo's genre drawings of the 1790s are among the most original works in 18th-century Venetian art because they combine the decorative tradition of Venetian painting with the informality and humor of genre subjects that had no precedent in his father's more grandiose manner. The Woman with a Tambourine shows Tiepolo treating a genre subject with the same pen and wash virtuosity that his father brought to religious and mythological subjects, creating a type of drawing that is both decorative and informal.
Why It Matters
The Woman with a Tambourine is Tiepolo's late genre drawing at its most engaging: a dancing figure with a tambourine rendered in pen and wash with the decorative virtuosity of the Venetian tradition and the informality of 18th-century genre. The 1790s drawing is among Tiepolo's most original contributions to Venetian art.
