Punchinello as Tailor's Assistant
late 18th–early 19th century
Medium
Pen and brown ink, light brown wash, over black chalk
Dimensions
13 7/8 x 18 1/2 in. (35.3 x 47.0 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.472
Tags
Art Historical Context
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s *Punchinello as Tailor’s Assistant* captures a lively moment from the artist’s celebrated series of drawings chronicling the adventures of Punchinello, the mischievous hunchbacked clown of the Italian commedia dell’arte. Created in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century, the scene shows the masked figure engaged in the ordinary task of sewing, blending everyday activity with theatrical fantasy. Tiepolo, son of the renowned Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, carried forward the family’s lighthearted Rococo spirit even as artistic tastes shifted towa...
About the Artist
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo · 1727–1804
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804) was a Venetian painter, printmaker, and draftsman whose career spanned the twilight of the Rococo era. Born on August 30, 1727, in Venice as the eldest son of the celebrated Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, he worked both in his father's shadow and as a significant independent artist who developed a distinctly earthbound and humanistic vision. Domenico's importance...