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Helmeted male head

Maker

(artist)
1696-1770

Title

Helmeted male head

Date of Production

1740s

Medium

black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey-brown wash on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 20.4 cm
Width: 16.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.3613

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Notes

It was suggested that this is the head of Alexander the Great, as depicted in Tiepolo's painted sketch Alexander and Bucephalus (Petit Palais, Paris), executed circa 1757-1760. However, the drawing has been dated about a decade earlier, to the late 1740s, and so the connection may be incidental.

Provenance

Note in file suggested this had the same provenance as other drawings from the Cheney album, though without any substantial evidence. The Cheney provenance is here given summarly in brackets, with the known provenance listed from Captain Colville on: [probably mounted by the artist in an album and given to his son, Giuseppe Tiepolo, friar in the convent of the Somaschi, Santa Maria della Salute, Venice, 1762; kept in convent of the Somaschi until its suppression, 1810; possibly acquired there by Count Bernardino Algarotti-Corniani; purchased from him by Edward Cheney, Badger Hall (1803-1885), in Venice, 31 May 1852; his sale, Sotheby's (London), 29 April 1885, probably part of lot 1024; purchased there by E. Parsons & Sons (London);] Captain Norman Robert Colville (1893-1974); purchased from him by Colnaghi (London), 26 June 1944; purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b, 9 October 1944 (£30); Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Art and Artifice: Fakes from the Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/06/2023-08/10/2023

Inscriptions

Watermark: lower centre: large seven-petalled flower with a long curled stem with asymmetric leaves (no match in Heawood or on memory of paper database, but a close match found in a GB Tiepolo drawing at Harvard https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/299146).

Collector's mark: Verso: lower left corner, stamped in black ink: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

Inscription: Verso: lower centre edge, graphite: "G.B. Tiepolo / Sketch for the figure in Alessandro e Bucefalo / Parigi - Petit Palais".

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