Punchinello Collapses on the Road, from the series Divertimento per li regazzi (Entertainment for Children)
Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727–1804)
c. 1791
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
Between 1797 and his death in 1804, Domenico Tiepolo created 104 inventive wash drawings for what he called Divertimenti per li ragazzi (diversions for children). This series described the life, from birth to death, of the tragicomic commedia dell’arte figure Punchinello (identified by his conical hat and beaked mask), in a loosely structured tale of an everyman.
In Punchinello Collapses on the Road, we see the protagonist, surrounded by eleven of his companions and three lamenting women, in the final days before his death. While Punchinello is indeed a kind of everyman, Tiepolo also made references throughout the series to the life of Christ. This drawing calls to mind one of Christ’s falls as he carried the cross.
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink and brush and brown washes, over traces of charcoal, on off-white laid paper, with framing lines in pen and brown ink
- Original size
- 36 × 47.5 cm (14 3/16 × 18 3/4 in.)
Museum record · 4 owners · 5 exhibitions
Provenance
- Estate of the artist; sold Hôtel des Ventes, Paris, Nov. 10–12, 1845.
- Sold, Sotheby’s, London, July 6–7, 1920, lot 41, to Colnaghi, London; sold to Richard Owen, Paris, to at least 1950.
- Léon Suzor, Paris, by 1952–at least Nov. 1971.
- Sold by Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, London, to a private collection, 1995; sold, Sotheby’s, New York, Jan. 29, 2014, lot 38, through François Borne to the Gray Collection Trust, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.
Exhibitions
- Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 1921..
- Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Chefs-d’oeuvre des Collections Parisiennes, 1950.
- Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Tiepolo et Guardi, 1952.
- Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie des Tuileries, Venise au dix-huitième siècle, 1971.
- The Art Institute of Chicago, "Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection", January 25 - May 10, 2020, GC 80, traveled to New York, The Morgan Library, February 19 - June 6, 2021, and Berkeley CA, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, August 4 - November 28, 2021.
