Giandomenico Tiepolo: Book of Heads n° 60
This idea of a collection of Heads of ‘characters’ was inspired by the double series of Oriental Heads produced by the seventeenth-century Genoese artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione,
a great experimenter and innovator in the field of engraving whose work was particularly admired
by the Tiepolo artists.
Giandomenico began work on his first group of twenty-seven heads in the years 1757-62. Then, after the death of his father in 1770 and his own return from Spain, he again took up the idea
of Oriental heads and added to that initial group: in the Catalogo, a total of sixty etchings is listed.
Teodoro Correr’s collection of copper plates for the ‘Heads’ series also includes a self-portrait and a portrait of Giambattista Tiepolo. These are shown here together with ‘counterpart’ prints taken from them. Such copies are taken by pressing a sheet onto a print whilst the ink is still wet,
so that the resultant image reproduces the exact appearance of the original copper plate.