What I'm reading: A Venetian Theory of Heaven - Part 4

‘London for a ceiling from Ca’ Contarini’

William Riviere, A Venetian Theory of Heaven, Sceptre, 1992

Here, Riviere is referring to a ceiling by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo dated around 1754 -8 which was originally in the Palazzo Contarini.  Titled An Allegory with Venus and Time, the ceiling may have been commissioned to celebrate the birth of an heir in the family, as in the painting, Venus is handing a little boy to the figure of Time.

 The ceiling was acquired by the National Gallery of London in the late 1960s.

What I'm reading: A Venetian Theory of Heaven - Part 3

‘She had visited Paris for the pictures the French had stolen’

William Riviere, A Venetian Theory of Heaven, Sceptre, 1992

The work which came immediately to my mind when I read this sentence in A Venetian Theory of Heaven, was Paolo Veronese’s (1528 – 1588) Wedding of Cana which today hangs in the Denon Wing of the Louvre Museum (in the same room as the Mona Lisa) after it was looted by Napoleon from the refectory of the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore.

The refectory was built to a design by Palladio and completed in 1562.  The friars commissioned the painting from Veronese in 1562, insisting that the work be monumental and Veronese certainly delivered– the work originally measured 70m² (it is the largest work in the collection of the Louvre museum). 

 Veronese worked on the painting for 15 months, completing it in 1563.  The Wedding of Cana marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Palladio and Veronese – they later worked together on the Villa Barbaro at Maser.  The work was feted around Europe – Cosimo III de’ Medici claimed that it was worth the trip to Venice just to see this painting.

The Wedding of Cana hung in the refectory for 235 years until Napoleon ordered that the work be confiscated.  It was torn from the wall, cut in half for the journey, rolled up like a carpet and shipped to Paris in 1797.  As a result, the painting suffered from significant paint loss and it underwent restoration in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but records from these works are incomplete.

 Napoleon, of course, literally ‘captured Venice’, when he forced the city to surrender in 1797. 

During the French Republican and Napoleonic eras, looting became a military tactic by victorious armies.  Napoleon established the first official military division dedicated to seizing and shipping captured artworks.  Specially-trained personnel would follow behind the army to inventory, pack, and ship art. 

Stealing art from vanquished countries was a morale booster, and looted masterpieces were moved to the recently converted Louvre museum, where Napoleon’s art advisor Dominique Vivant Denon became the museum’s first director (remember which wing of the Louvre museum houses this work?).

 In 1815, when the allies who had beaten Napoleon negotiated the redistribution of confiscated works of art, the size of The Wedding of Cana presented a conundrum, and the negotiators settled on an unsatisfactory exchange of this masterpiece.  The Wedding of Cana remained at the Louvre, and in its stead, Venice received The Pharisee’s Banquet with Mary Magdalene at Christ’s Feet by French artist Charles Le Brun (now at the Accademia in Venice).

In 1992, whilst undergoing restoration, the Louvre was embarrassed by two separate incidents with The Wedding of Cana – it was first spattered by water from a leaking air vent and just a few days later, as museum workers were raising the 1.5 ton painting to a higher position on the wall, one of the supports collapsed and the entire painting fell.  The accident tore five holes in the painting. 

The Benedictine monastery at San Giorgio Maggiore was destroyed under Napoleon.  It was later used by the Austrian army.  The island became a free port and was later home to the Venice artillery, and a new harbour was built in 1812.

 In 1949, Count Vittorio Cini established the Giorgio Cini Foundation in memory of his son, Giorgio Cini, who was killed in an airplane accident at Cannes.  The original purpose of the Foundation was to restore the former monastery and to create a cultural centre for Venice.

 The Fondazione Giorgio Cini has advocated for years for the return of this masterpiece to Venice.  According to reports, they have been told that whilst intellectually the painting belongs in the refectory of the monastery, politically, it can never be returned.

 On 11 September 2007 (the 210^th anniversary of the looting of the painting by French troops) a full scale facsimile copy of the painting was unveiled in its original location at San Giorgio Maggiore.  The copy was commissioned by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.

 The Louvre museum website’s notation for the painting merely states that this work ‘entered the Louvre in 1798’. 

A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 4

 ‘London for a ceiling fromCa’ Contarini’

What I'm reading: A Venetian Theory of Heaven - Part 2

‘She’d been to Dresden, had stood before Giorgione’s Venere dormiente’

William Riviere, A Venetian Theory of Heaven, Sceptre, 1992

 Also known as the Dresden Venus, Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus is in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden,Germany.

Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco) was born around 1477/1478 in Castelfranco, Veneto.  Although he was one of the most significant and collected artists of the High Renaissance in Venice, relatively little is known of his life.  He died (possibly of the plague) in Venice in October 1510 at the age of just 32 or 33 years.  There are now only a handful of paintings which are believed to be Giorgione.  He is believed to have been apprenticed to Giacomo Bellini and was a contemporary of Titian, with whom he worked on the exterior frescoes of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi near the Rialto. 

 The Sleeping Venus was unfinished at the time of Giorgione’s death, and it is believed to have been completed by Titian.  Like much of Giorgione’s work, there have been many debates regarding the attribution of this painting.  It is generally believed that Giorgione created the nude, and Titan completed the landscape (the group of rustic buildings on the right is also included in Titian’s Noli me Tangere in London and in the Borghese's Sacred and Profane Love).

In 1843, restoration work on Sleeping Venus revealed a hidden cupid at Venus’ feet, holding a bird in his left hand and an arrow in his right.

It is generally believed that the painting was commissioned by Girolamo (or Jeronimo) Marcello in honour of his marriage to Morosina Pisani in 1507.  The Venetian collector Marcantonio Michiel wrote that the painting was in the home of Jeronimo Marcello at ‘San Tomado’ (San Toma) in 1525.  Michiel’s editor, Carli Ridolfi saw in the Ca’ Marcello over a century later in 1646.  He wrote:

‘In Marcello’s house there is a lovely nude Venus sleeping, with Cupid at her feet holding a bird in his hand, which (cupid) was finished by Titian.’ The Venus is now alone in the landscape, for the Cupid was so badly damaged that it had to be effaced”.

 In 1699, the work was acquired by French dealer Le Roy for King Augustus of Saxony.  By 1707, it was listed in the Dresden inventory as ‘a Venus with an amoretto by Giorgione, Original”.

Note  – I’m still trying to locate ‘Ca Marcello near San Toma’ where the work is believed to have originated. 

In John Berendt’s City of Falling Angels, he describes meeting a present day Count Girolamo Marcello (who lives in a palazzo near the Fenice).  The contemporary Girolamo Marcello was a friend of the Russian poet and writer, Joseph Brodsky, and Brodsky wrote ‘Watermark’ whilst staying at Ca’ Marcello.  Brodsky also published two poems in his volume of poems, So Forth, In front of the Ca’ Marcello and Homage to Girolamo Marcello. 

 I’d appreciate any leads that readers may have about the Ca’ Marcello near San Toma. 

A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 3

‘She hadvisited Paris for the pictures the French had stolen’

A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 4

 ‘London for a ceiling fromCa’ Contarini’

What I'm reading: A Venetian Theory of Heaven - Part 1

“…her father had once explained the theory of heaven to her like this. Heaven was all the great Venetian paintings, he had said. But some had been lost in fires or otherwise destroyed, and many had been dispersed around the world. The surviving pieces of Venetian heaven were hopelessly scattered, and we couldn’t ransom them. So, his daughter declared and laughed, she’d had the idea of fitting a few bits together. Not knowing what to do with herself, she’d begun to do that. She’d been to Dresden, had stood before Giorgione’s Venere dormiente. She had visited Paris for the pictures the French had stolen, London for a ceiling from Ca’ Contarini….Not a seat of judgement and of justice, her father’s kingdom of God. Come to that, not a kingdom.  A marine republic, no? Anyway, just hues, lines, shimmering of a lost dignity and loveliness one could try to piece together in one’s head.”

 William Riviere, A Venetian Theory of Heaven, Sceptre, 1992

I read William Riviere’s By the Grand Canal (Grove Press, reprinted 2005) a few months ago, and I enjoyed his detailed, atmospheric and loving descriptions of Venice.

Just before Christmas, I managed to track down a copy of A Venetian Theory of Heaven.  The novel follows Venetian-born heiress, Amedea Lezze. Married to English architect Guy Ashmanhaugh, and mother to their young son Corrado, Amedea is restless and bored with the domesticity of her life. 

She meets a newly arrived French lecturer, Gerard Charry, and finds a means of escape.

Amedea leaves her family in Venice and rents an idyll in Tuscany which she shares with Gerard. And yet, even with him she is restless, and in pursuit of occupation and diversion, Amedea remembers her father’s theory of heaven and sets off on small trips around Europe in search of ‘lost’ Venetian paintings.

I am entranced by this ‘Venetian theory of heaven’, and Riviere’s descriptions of Amedea’s travels in search of the paintings set me off on my own detective hunt over the past few days.

What does Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus look like? Where is it? Which pictures did the French steal? Where is the ceiling in London?

 Here’s what I discovered:



A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 2

‘She’d been to Dresden, had stood before Giorgione’s Veneredormiente’

A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 3

‘She had visited Paris for the pictures the French had stolen’

A Venetian Theory of Heaven – Part 4

 ‘London for a ceiling fromCa’ Contarini’