Ninfa con Piccolo Satiro e Due Capre

Black and white etching on wire rod paper. Signed on plate on the lower left margin, printed in a unique state and belonging to the series “ Varj Capricci”.

Very fine impression with wide margins in excellent conditions. Very minor traces of oxidation on the higher margin, and a light stain on the lower margin, outside the printed image.

One of the most celebrated painters of the eighteenth century in Italy,  Giovanni Battista Tiepolo  (1696-1770) began making prints with his first collection of ten etchings, known as the  Varj Capricci : a very personal response to the production by  Salvator Rosa  and  Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione . Following Rutgers, the series was realized between 1733 and 1735. The prints have no straightforward or overt meanings, yet surely several prints evoke the ancient or Arcadian world with classical urns, figures near tombstones, and fragments of obelisks; in one plate, the personification of Death is reading a book in front of a group of living beings. Tiepolo’s  Vari Capricci  were greatly celebrated among collectors and connoisseurs, owing to to their technical virtuosity and to their enigmatic meanings, sign of the artist's brilliance as well as of the successful and personal variations of the “ capriccio ”. In 1774, Pierre-Jean Mariette wrote about Tiepolo: “ Rich and fertile genius … he shines above all in his prints ’'.

Reference:  De Vesme, 7; Rizzi, 33; Succi, 45.