Christ's head with crown of thorns

Giandomenico Tiepolo's drawing depicts a right-facing bust of the martyred Christ, and his head bowed to the side. Christ's gaze, directed towards the viewer, is filled with the pain of suffering from the crown of thorns thrust into his forehead. Georg Knox, a researcher on artists from the Venetian Tiepolo family, believes that the study was created during Giandomenico's work in Würzburg between 1751 and 1753. Giandomenico repeatedly took up the themes of the Passion. He was the author of fourteen oil paintings from the cycle Stations of the Cross intended for the Oratorio del Crocifisso of the Church of San Polo in Venice. Etchings were made according to that cycle between 1747 and 1749. While working in Madrid, Giandomenico completed a cycle of paintings called The Passion of Christ for the Church of St Philip Nereus in 1771. The painting Ecce Homo kept in the Fine Arts Gallery in San Diego may also be associated with that cycle. The sketch in the Szczecin Museum might have been created while working on that theme, as evidenced by how Christ's head is depicted and his expressive face reflecting pain and the desire for compassion. Such an expressive look is known only from this one of Giandomenico's drawings and has no counterpart in his other works on the Passion theme.

Ewa Gwiazdowska