A fine, well-inked impression of this etching from Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s (1727–1804) series of portraits, the Raccolta di Teste, here offered in the first state before numbers. This example has unusually wide margins.

The portraits in the Raccolta were engraved after a series of paintings of philosophers’ heads by the artist’s celebrated father, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. However, there is no identified source for this particular portrait among Gianbattista’s surviving oeuvre, and so it may be one of Giandomenico’s original compositions.

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, born into a family of prominent Venetian artists, was the son Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and the older brother of Lorenzo Baldissera Tiepolo. Giandomenico enjoyed a successful artistic career from an early age, first as chief assistant to his father, and later as an artist in his own right. Though he worked primarily as a painter and draftsman, he also enjoyed success as a printmaker. He worked in the Baroque style, and is best known for his secular works, such as this.