Fabrizio Chiari ^©  

(1615 ca, 1695)

From Titian. The work is accompanied by a study on pigments carried out by the faculty of nuclear physics of professor Paolo Romano, of the University of Catania, which certifies the nature of the pigments. Present expertise of Prof. Strinati " 

The painting depicting the so-called Homage to Venus (oil on canvas, cm .  171 x 176) and a very high quality and in fair condition copy of

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conservation of the famous painting by Tiziano Vecellio (currently

preserved at the Prado Museum in Madrid) known formerly both with the

title of Festa degli Amorini (as it is sometimes still quoted today) and with< o:p>

the more famous one of Homage to Venus.

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Titian painted it for the alabaster Camerini of Alfonso |d' Este lord of

Ferrara. He had prepared

in the Ducal Palace of his city, a sort of marvelous little study to decorate which I invited some of the < /o:p>

greatest Italian painters active in his time, i.e. at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

And among these Titian obviously stood out for his incomparable fame and

intrinsic greatness. The Homage to Venus was a resounding success,

so much so that it became one of the most loved paintings by the artists themselves and by critics

of art so much to be copied by many of the most distinguished painters of Europe among

< p class="MsoNormal">the sixteenth and seventeenth century like Rubens, Reni,Poussin!

Our copy, examined here, probably dates back to the same period

historian in full "neo-Venetian" phase, as Roberto Longhi calls it in his

studies on the Este court and its enormous influence. So our copy

could be dated about a hundred years later or a little more than the original< /p>

titian executed around 1520, and refer to the Roman environment which

had a real own cult towards the magnificence of Venetian art

when, in the Eternal City, I dominate the great painter and architect Pietro da< /o:p>

Cortona who, although Tuscan, was a devoted follower of the Venetian masters

of the sixteenth century. Among the many students and collaborators of Cortona who

dedicated with particular commitment to increasing with their works</o: p>

this fascinating Venetian taste in Rome, I think it is possible

identify precisely the author of our copy.

Evaluating the pictorial material of our copy and the excellent quality of the

drawing and of what we could call a real

reinterpretation of Titian's style, I believe that to paint here

in question was a precise follower of Cortona.

He is the Roman master Fabrizio Chiari (1615ca.-1695), an artist< /o:p>

praised in his time, learned classicist and lover of Venetian taste as

can be seen in one of his masterpieces, the immense and beautiful fresco

depicting the Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau in the so-called Gallery

by Alexander VII at the Quirinale, executed in the 1650s.

I seem to recognize you here as the same hand that executed the magnificent</o :p>

copy in question, with a marked naturalistic taste, extremely fine quality

pictorial and drawing material, purely seventeenth-century.

All in all, a painting of considerable historical-artistic interest and

excellent quality.

Truthfully, Claudio Strinati"