Illustration for a Book: Attacks on the Walls of a City by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is a striking 18th-century drawing executed entirely in black chalk. As a preparatory study intended for publication, the work features precise technical details: faint horizontal and vertical centering lines are ruled across the paper, indicating its function as a design ready for transfer to an etching plate or woodcut for mass production. This drawing, created sometime during Tiepolo's long and prolific career (1696-1770), exemplifies the highly theatrical and energetic draftsmanship that characterized the great Venetian master’s output.
The subject matter focuses on a dramatic military engagement, illustrating the ferocity involved in Attacks on the Walls of a City. Tiepolo uses the monochrome medium of black chalk with great agility to convey the movement and density of the conflict. Clustered soldiers scale the defenses of the ancient city, while the action is punctuated by numerous flags and banners that emphasize the chaotic setting. The detail and complexity suggest this was intended for a significant folio or illustrated book.
Housed today in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this preparatory drawing provides a valuable window into the production methods of the period. Because many of Tiepolo’s works, particularly his studies and resulting prints, are now part of the public domain, the rigorous compositional technique displayed in this piece is widely studied by artists and scholars interested in 18th-century illustration.
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