This captivating head of a bearded man is an important addition to the oeuvre Giandomenico Tiepolo, a leading Rococo artist who captured the grandeur of Venetian society. The work forms part of a set of three recently rediscovered paintings all on offer from a private collects ion and all inscribed with the name of a Greek philosopher, the present lot identified as Demosthenes.¹ Several distinct elements unite these three heads: each is rendered with vitality and depth and Tiepolo’s masterful, energetic brushwork is beautifully preserved throughout.

This painting forms part of a group of fantasy portraits of philosophers and exotic figures produced by Giandomenico Tiepolo and his father, Giambattista.² All of comparable formats and dimensions, these images were meant to delight the viewer, as remarkably exemplified in this painting. Here, the fanciful sitter wears a lavish cost.mes of complimentary colors. He dons a blue and yellow trimmed turban and a robe, the white inner lining of which draws attention to his prominent grey beard and distinctive facial features. Although the sitter’s light eyes are directed beyond the painted realm, his presence is thoroughly engrossing.

The genesis of this particular genre by the Tiepolos remains somewhat unclear, but it seems probable that at least some of the heads originated as part of a specific commission from Giambattista of circa 1757, before both father and son left Venice to work in Würzburg.³ Giandomenico went on to use his father’s compositions both as the basis for a series of engravings, the Raccolta di Teste, published in 1774, after his father’s death, and as inspiration for his own paintings. Like many of Giandomenico’s painted heads of bearded men, the present composition relates to those represented in the Raccolta series but at the same t.mes features elements of the younger artist’s own invention.

1. The second from this series is inscribed Socrates and is offered as lot 158 in this sale. The third, inscribed Aristotle, is offered as lot 430 in the Master Paintings and Sculpture Part II sale (27 January 2023).

2. Two comparable head studies by Giandomenico Tiepolo have recently been sold at Replica Shoes 's New York on 30 January 2019 (for $471,000) and 1 February 2018 (for $447,000).

3. G. Knox, Domenico Tiepolo: Raccolta di teste, Udine 1970.