Punchinello Collapses on the Road
c. 1791
Medium
Pen and brown ink and brush and brown washes, over traces of charcoal, on off-white laid paper, with framing lines in pen and brown ink
Dimensions
36 × 47.5 cm (14 3/16 × 18 3/4 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
244915
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Between 1797 and his death in 1804, Domenico Tiepolo created 104 inventive wash drawings for what he called Divertimenti per li ragazzi (diversions for children). This series described the life, from birth to death, of the tragicomic commedia dell’arte figure Punchinello (identified by his conical hat and beaked mask), in a loosely structured tale of an everyman. In Punchinello Collapses on the Road, we see the protagonist, surrounded by eleven of his companions and three lamenting women, in th...
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...