Mens' heads

Giambattista Tiepolo's drawing shows black men's heads leaning towards each other as if engrossed in a moving conversation. One of them, shown in profile with a large pearl in his ear, seems to be saying something important, probably commenting on the event he is participating in. It is evidenced by the other man's fixed, staring gaze. His face shown from above suggests that an outsider is surreptitiously watching him. That way, the artist conveyed the aura of the fresco with the scene The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra. The last queen of Hellenistic Egypt, Cleopatra, met Mark Antony, a leader and politician, one of the triumvirs, during his travels in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. The infatuated Egyptian ruler financially supported Antony's unsuccessful political and military ventures. The unhappy lovers died a suicidal death.The sketch using black and white crayons on thick blue paper produced in Venice belongs to a group of drawings associated with the work on the fresco painted in the salon of the Palazzo Labia in Venice in 1745. The drawing belongs to the group of 36 Tiepolo family's works, the most extensive Polish collection of drawings created by this distinguished and famous 18th-century Venetian artistic family.

Ewa Gwiazdowska