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From Paolo Veronese, Allegory of Strength and Wisdom

About the Item

Follower of Paolo Veronese (Verona, 1528 - Venice, 1588) Allegory of wisdom and strength Oil on canvas, 48 x 36.5 cm Picture frame, 61 x 48 cm The Allegory of Wisdom and Strength is a painting made in 1565 in Venice, by Paolo Veronese and currently housed at the Frick Collection in New York. The Allegory of Wisdom and Strength and the Allegory of Virtue and Vice have gone through the same vicissitudes since their creation, passing through numerous estates and collections. Because of this, several scholars have speculated that Veronese painted the canvases in pairs. In 1970, Edgar Munhall was the first to suggest that they were simply completed at the same time, but that they were not a pendant. Studies conducted by experts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 2000s confirmed this thesis: scholars found that the artist used different materials for the support of each painting, adopted a different composition of the motifs and an equally different methodology in processing the sky. These discrepancies led scholars to believe that the paintings were conceived individually, as works independent of each other. Moreover, the conclusion was supported by the visual analysis of the two canvases as a whole: it is clearly perceived that they do not complement each other, as they would have if they were a pair of paintings). Since its creation in Venice in the second half of the 16th century, this work has been owned by Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg, Queen Christina of Sweden, and the Odescalchi family; then it was part of the Orleans Collection of Philip II of Bourbon-Orléans and later belonged to a variety of English owners and art dealers, until it reached the Frick Collection in New York. The monumentally large painting bears a subject of an allegorical nature: in fact, the personification of Wisdom on the left and Hercules, who stands for Strength and earthly concerns on the right, are represented. The conflict between divine and mortal matters is a central theme of the work. In the scene, the virtuousness of divine Wisdom appears to triumph over the earthly desires of Hercules: in fact, the woman, whose gaze is turned to the sky, is bathed in light and seems almost to be caught in a moment of elevation; in contrast, the figure of Hercules, who is looking down in the direction of the jewels lying on the ground, tends to assume a downward position and is shrouded in a gloomy shadow. The allegorical genre is unusual both in comparison with Veronese's famous canvases of historical and biblical subjects and with other less formal works by other Venetian Renaissance artists such as Giorgione or Titian. This work, along with the Allegory of Vice and Virtue, is believed to be among the first of its kind completed by Caliari. Several coeval or slightly later copies of the painting exist, testifying to its enormous visual fortune in the Venetian sphere: the uniqueness and unusual nature of this iconography certainly catalyzed the attention of the ramified group of figures around the painter Paolo Veronese, who was able to build a populous and laborious workshop around himself. The item is in good condition
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 18.9 in (48 cm)Width: 14.18 in (36 cm)
  • More Editions & Sizes:
    48x36 Price: $3,947
  • Medium:
  • After:
    Paolo Veronese (1528 - 1588, Italian)
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Milan, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU2639215816872

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