Bust of an Old Man

Tiepolo was a painter of a number of themes – he created biblical, historical, mythological, and allegorical scenes, he was a sought-after painter for patrons coming both from the Church, and aristocracy, and he was also very flexible in the use of various painting techniques. This painting belongs to a larger series of Tiepolo’s character heads (teste di carattere), in which the painter represents a certain type of person including his garment, with the concern focused on his physiognomy – such as here, his fascination with an old man’s face full of wrinkles. In this, Tiepolo looks back to the works of Rembrandt, who liked to depict old men’s figures in Oriental clothes. Tiepolo was based in the environment of Venice, where many different nationalities with their typical clothes mixed. The artist´s son, Giovanni Domenico, made graphic versions of the father’s set of paintings, called Collection of Heads (Raccolta di teste), among which this painting is also recorded.