GodFather

In the sketch, Giambattista Tiepolo depicted God as an older man with a broad face surrounded by dishevelled locks of hair and a long white beard. In the bust, God is portrayed straight ahead, wearing a voluminous, tightly folded robe made of thick fabric. He is looking ahead, squinting his eyes. There is a globe in front of him. Initially, scholars considered the drawing to be the work of Giambattista's son, Giandomenico. It was not until Georg Knox, an English researcher on the Tiepolo family's work, linked the sketch with the figure of the Almighty on a now-defunct fresco telling the story of the Holy House of the Virgin Mary in Loreto. The fresco was painted in 1743 on the vault of the Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth in Venice. Characteristic features of the figures in the sketch and the fresco are the halo around the head and the arrangement of the robes emphasising God's power and might. The Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, called Degli Scalzi, was built according to Baldassarre Longhena's design between 1672 and 1705 for the Carmelite order. The Austrians destroyed Tiepolo's fresco during a bombing in 1915, and its remains are kept in the Gallerie dell'Accademia.The drawing was made using black and white crayons on thin blue Venetian paper with the P 28 watermark, possibly belonging to a papermaker. It belongs to the collection of Tiepolo works held in the Cabinet of Graphic Arts of the National Museum (Muzeum Narodowe) in Szczecin.

Ewa Gwiazdowska