It is thought that caricature drawings by Giambattista Tiepolo, such as this one, once made up at least three or four albums. Two such albums, containing ‘an ample collection of humorous drawings by Tiepolo’, are recorded in the collection of Count Bernardino Corniani degli Algarotti in Venice in 1854. The present drawing most likely comes from the Tomo terzo de caricature (‘Third tome’, that was sold at Christie’s in 1943).

It has been calculated that perhaps there were initially as many as between four and six hundred such drawings in total. Around two hundred examples survive today, most of which are by Giambattista Tiepolo. They must have remained in the family studio after the elder Tiepolo’s death. Almost every other known Tiepolo caricature drawing has cut corners, which again suggests that they were once pasted into albums. Fifteen such drawings are today in the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Giambattista Tiepolo’s caricatures seem to have been done for his own amusement, and also – albeit perhaps incidentally - as a source of figural types for his sons. In the words of one scholar, these delightful drawings ‘are the fruit of the artist’s leisure hours, the work of a man for whom the act of drawing was always the source of the keenest of pleasures.’ Often humorous in nature, yet simultaneously sympathetic to their subjects, they do not express judgement on the person they represent. They more frequently represent types, such as noblemen or priests, with the subject often seen from behind.

Count Bernardino Algarotti Corniani, 1854; probably Breadalbane family; Langton House, Dun., Berwickshire; Colnaghi, London, in the early 1900s, with its associated number A037; sale, Edinburgh, Dowells, 25 March 1925, lot 1004 (bought by J. Grant, bookseller, Edinburgh); Arthur Kay, Edinburgh; sale, Christie's London, 9 April 1943, lot 244 (107 drawings); Private Collection, Venice; Italico Brass; Sotheby's London, 3 July 2019, lot 341, Tomo terzo de caricature ; Sotheby’s London, 8 July 2021, lot 117 (£ 3.024), where acquired by Warren Levin; gift to The Samuel Courtauld Trust, 2025.