Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

The Setting Off on the Flight into Egypt

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
1727-1804

The Setting Off on the Flight into Egypt

18 7/16 x 14 1/4 inches (468 x 362 mm)
Pen and brown ink and wash, over charcoal, on paper.
IV, 146

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

Notes
The apocryphal gospels recount that, while in Egypt, the Holy Family had two encounters with robbers and befriended the good thief, even visiting him at his farm. Few artists depicted this highly unusual subject. Mining various sources, including the Apocrypha, Domenico Tiepolo devoted some thirty of his large drawings of biblical subjects (a series that includes more than 250 drawing in all) to events that transpired during the Flight into Egypt. --Exhibition Label, from "Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings"
Inscriptions/Markings
Signed at lower left, in pen and brown ink, "Dom.o[o in superscript above period] Tiepolo f."
Watermark: letters "AM" below bow and arrow. Probably papermaker Andrea Maffizzoli, Toscolano.
Associated names
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Bibliography
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, IV, 146, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Jacob Bean. Drawings from New York collections. III: The eighteenth century in Italy. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1971, no. 255.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department