A small but satisfying exhibition of the dynamic Tiepolo duo is on at the Metropolitan Museum of Art now through 28 September 2014. Tucked into a quiet first-floor gallery, the whimsical selection of 14 drawings provides a welcome refuge from the usual hustle and bustle of the museum. Further – and perhaps of note for the occasional art historian to stumble into the show – it provides a charming if not also novel glance into the deep influence the elder Tiepolo (Giovanni Battista, 1719-1770) had on even the lightest and most comical of the younger’s sketches. 

The first two walls offer selections from Giovanni Domenico’s (1727-1804) Divertimento per li Regazzi, a series of 104 caricatures that include scenes from the life of Punchinello. Endeared to early modern audiences for his role in the commedia dell’arte, the poor clown – and the myriad jesters, all indistinguishable in the same fool’s clothing, who follow him endlessly – has not fared well in these smart cartoons, stumbling through life with leaden feet and far-flung thoughts. Indeed, Tiepolo’s sense of comedic timing is superb, delivering a kind of gentle, rolling laughter to the works themselves.

The audience first encounters Punchinello as a Dressmaker (c. 1800), the clown clumsily hoisting skirts above a patron’s head as he gazes at another woman in the shop, too distracted to attend the customer flailing in front of him. It only gets richer from there: with works like Punchinello Outside a Circus or Punchinello Retrieving Dead Fowls from a Well (both late 18th / early 19th century), viewers cannot help but consider the link between this character, with his sharply pointed mask, shrill voice and cone hat, and his animal partners, who slump and strut in a similar manner. Indeed, there is a kind of clownish weight to these drawings, one that is strong enough to balance out the inherent tragedy of Punchinello’s life. 

Ultimately even this falls apart, and the misfortune that follows Punchinello is almost too much to bear. His mishaps are replaced with floggings and funerals; in The Flogging of Punchinello (c. 1800), the welts on his bare buttocks are there for all the world to see as he is hoisted over a figure’s shoulder and beaten with a switch. He cannot even be buried properly (The Burial of Punchinello, c. 1800), his body swinging unwillingly over a narrow burial plot as several of his look-alikes try to swing him in. 

Beyond their comedic intent, the drawings act as a forceful reminder of the younger, though now aging, Tiepolo’s talent for capturing even the most frivolous of moments with an acute sense of space and audience. Characters on the sidelines remain as important to the narrative as Punchinello himself; in Punchinello as a Dressmaker, it is the gent off to the side, sweeping up a dog, who may catch our attention after a moment; in Punchinello Retrieving Dead Fowls from a Well, the barefoot woman, covering her eyes as she jumps to and fro, and the figures behind her, their backsides almost rippling with movement as they turn and run from the dead fowl. These ultimately not-so-peripheral characters add an incredible richness to these glimpses into Punchinello’s life, keeping it perpetually animated, lest there ever be a dull moment. 

The exhibition concludes with five of Giovanni Battista’s caricatures, seen from behind (all c. 1760). Culled from his observations of Venetian crowds in the second half of the eighteenth century, they are Rückenfiguren stripped of their landscapes and dark bedrooms, portly and unaware. His caricature of a man in a voluminous gown draws laughs: the man stands off-kilter, his hands having disappeared into his ample midriff. His Man Holding a Tricorne, Seen From Behind is a hulking, near proto-Nosferatu (although far more hilarious); Caricature of a Fat Man, Seen From Behind, a gent who stands half at attention, his épée buried beneath his coat, continues this trend. Together, the little grouping provides an unexpected point of reference for several figures in scenes from the life of Punchinello.

Tiepolo Caricatures from the Robert Lehman Collection is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 30 June to 28 September 2014.