Three Winged Female Figures

Three Winged Female Figures is an expressive and dynamic drawing by the celebrated Venetian master, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, created during his prolific career in the eighteenth century (1696-1770). This piece exemplifies Tiepolo’s command of graphic media, blending line and tone to achieve a powerful yet economical effect. The composition was executed primarily using pen and rich brown ink, skillfully supplemented by a brush with pale (yellow) brown wash laid over an initial sketch in black chalk. This layering technique allows for a dynamic interplay between defined contours and soft volumetric shading, characteristic of the Rococo period’s spontaneous draftsmanship.

The drawing depicts three allegorical, winged female figures whose poses convey a sense of weightless motion and grace. Tiepolo focused on capturing the essential anatomy of the female nudes, rendering the forms with swift, assured strokes that prioritize expressive energy over finished detail. The energetic rendering suggests that this sheet may have served as a preparatory study, possibly for a grand mythological fresco or a ceiling decoration, a genre in which Tiepolo was preeminent.

This exceptional work remains a significant example of the artist’s graphic output. It is held in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it contributes to their extensive holdings of eighteenth-century European drawings. Given the historical significance and the work’s age, this specific drawing is now classified as being in the public domain, ensuring that reference prints and high-resolution images of this Tiepolo masterwork are widely accessible for scholarly and educational purposes.