Pauwels Franck, known as Paolo Fiammingo (Antwerp, 1540 - Venice, 1596)
Portrait of a young woman as Venus
Oil on canvas (116 x 150 cm - in antique frame 136 x 170 cm)
The work is accompanied by a critical essay by Doctor Federica Spadotto
The complete details of this work can be consulted directly from the following - LINK -
The splendid painting depicts a refined and sensual Venus, undressed and lying on a gold-embroidered red cloth strewn with roses, in a composition with profound symbolic value, achieving the perfect representation of the Renaissance woman who, like Venus, becomes an allegory of love, eros, beauty and fertility.
The canvas is part of the prestigious Venetian artistic and cultural scene of the second half of the sixteenth century, whose distinctive feature is found in its cosmopolitan vocation. This characteristic, as Dr. Spadotto noted in her in-depth study, belongs to the very physiology of the Venetian capital, that is, being a distinctly commercial city located in a strategic point in relation to trade. Representing one of the most vibrant ports in the Mediterranean also meant witnessing the continuous passage not only of goods, but also of men, ideas, suggestions coming from distant countries, which influenced not only the taste of its people, but above all the art.
This occurred thanks to the circulation of prints, as well as pictorial examples, to which were added the stays of great foreign artists and, above all, the permanent stay in the capital of a non-negligible number of Dutch, Flemish and German masters.
An emblematic case in this regard comes from Pauwels Franck (Antwerp, 1540 - Venice, 1596), better known as Paolo Fiammingo, who established himself in his native city at a young age - in 1561 he was registered with the Guild of San Luca - and arrived in Venice in 1573.
He resided in Venice from 1584 until his death, although the stylistic and formal references of some of his works have led critics to believe that in previous years he had undertaken a journey to central Italy, namely Florence and Rome, where he would have assimilated the lively cultural debate that permeated these cities and that, instead, seemed completely absent in Venice.
Here Paolo will be fascinated by the sense of color and the atmospheric component fixed on the canvas by Jacopo Tintoretto (Venice 1518 - 1594), of whom he becomes a collaborator, to undergo, around 1590, the suggestion of Paolo Caliari known as Veronese (Verona 1528 - Venice 1588), both from the coloristic point of view, and with respect to precise guiding characters.
The painting under examination stands as an illuminating figurative example of what has just been mentioned, since it revisits the Venetian pictorial tradition through the Nordic filter, which is grafted onto a subject typical of the Renaissance repertoire. In the Venus in the foreground, with a typically Veronese physiognomy, the reference to the Venus with organist, cupid and dog executed by Titian (Pieve di Cadore, 1488-90-Venice, 1576) and now at the Staatlische Museum in Berlin appears to be a real tribute to the great master. With the latter he shares the compositional layout, with the red curtain that hangs over the goddess and the landscape in the background, although revisited in a strictly Nordic key, according to a modality that can be found in the Venus with dog of Ca 'Rezzonico, in Venice.
In this version of the theme, however, the author still shows himself linked to Flemish dictates, which in the large canvas under study become a complete synthesis of the aesthetics between Northern Europe and the lagoon sensitivity. In the little flowers in the foreground and in the enjoyable landscape that evokes the great Flemish masters, the very peculiar Venetian light is clearly perceptible: a real seal, together with the sky taken from Caliari, of the pictorial recipe elaborated by Pauwels. These create a polished cameo imbued with elegance, refinement and expressive happiness at the same time, in which the composed female beauty and the landscape reproduced with attention to detail coexist with a fast, lively brushstroke imbued with light.
The painting is in excellent condition, with a beautiful antique frame.
The work is accompanied by a photographic certificate of authenticity in accordance with the law.
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