Lot 73: Giovanni Raggi (Bergamo 1712-1793)

The Adoration of the Magi
with inscriptions 'Gio:Batta. Tiepolo.'
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash
18 7/8 x 12 in. (478 x 305 mm.)

Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Tiepolo et Guardi, 1952, no. 14 (as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo).
Paris, Orangerie, Venise au XVIIIe siècle, 1971, no. 250 (as possibly by Giovanni Raggi).

G. Knox, Tiepolo, a Bicentenary Exhibition, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, 1970, under nos. 22 and 25 (as Giovanni Raggi).

Pierre Decourcelle; Paris, 29-30 May 1911, lot 165, illustrated as Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 3,450 francs).

This drawing is from a group of sheets of similar compositions and style reattributed by George Knox to Giovanni Raggi (G. Knox, op. cit., under nos. 22 and 25). A drawing of the same subject and style is at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris (E. Brugerolles and D. Guillet, Les dessins vénitiens des collections de l'école des Beaux-Arts, exhib. cat., Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1990, no. 82). Both drawings are based on Tiepolo's etching of the composition dated 1745. The present drawing was probably drawn in 1732-45, while Raggi was working in Tiepolo's studio.