Lot 1379 Dα

Although Francesco Fontebasso was a student of Sebastiano Ricci, he was very much influenced by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The attribution of this drawing to Fontebasso can be based upon the subject. Similar distinctly oriental figures with elaborate gestures frequently appear in his paintings and drawings, i.e. on one sheet in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Cologne, Inv. No. 1959/57. As an illustrator and painter Fontebasso is an excellent and unmistaken representative in the Venetian tradition of the settecento. In its forceful, two-tone execution, our sheet can be compared to many of Fontebasso's drawings, for example the large brown and grey composition "Aeneas carrying Anchises from Troy" in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.