Sheep and Cows

Sheep and Cows from the 1790s is one of Tiepolo's most pastoral genre drawings, depicting farm animals in the pen and wash medium that he used for his late genre subjects. The drawing's subject—sheep and cows in a landscape—is a departure from the more dramatic religious and mythological subjects that dominate the work of his father Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and the 1790s date places this in the period when Domenico was producing the genre drawings and entertenments that are his most original contribution to Venetian art.

Sheep and Cows is important in Domenico Tiepolo's oeuvre because it demonstrates the pastoral genre subjects that distinguish his late work from the more grandiose religious and mythological subjects of his father. The drawing shows Domenico treating a simple pastoral subject with the same pen and wash virtuosity that the Tiepolo family brought to the most ambitious decorative commissions, creating a type of drawing that is both virtuosic and humble.

Sheep and Cows is Tiepolo treating pastoral genre with Venetian virtuosity: sheep and cows rendered in pen and wash with the same decorative skill that the Tiepolo family brought to ambitious commissions. The 1790s drawing is among Domenico's most humble and most original contributions to Venetian art.