Pluto

This is one of a series of mythological figures, numbered and probably also titled by Tiepolo himself. Seven of the series have been identified as designs for sculptures in the garden of the Villa Cordellina at Montecchio Maggiore, near Vicinza, where Tiepolo executed an important cycle of frescoes in 1743. The other drawings, including this sheet, are logically thought to have been intended for the same function. This is seconded by their conception, of unusually compact and stable forms, and execution, in a more evenly dispersed and simply volumetric version of the typical pen-and-wash of Tiepolo’s maturity.