Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA)

Statement of

Expert Adviser to the Secretary of State

that

Case No 29 (2015-16) The Apotheosis of Venice by Paolo Veronese

Meets Waverley criteria two and three

Statement opposing the export of:

Paolo Caliari, il Veronese (Verona 1528-1588 Venice)

The Apotheosis of Venice: Design for a Ceiling in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, Palazzo

Ducale, Venice

With inscription ‘P. Veronese fec/ No. 36/ The Ceiling/ Senate’

Black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with oil paint on varnished paper,

squared in red and black chalk, made up at the left margin, oval

53.6 x 36 cm.

Provenance

Sir Peter Lely (L. 2092).

Prosper Henry Lankrink (L. 2090).

Possibly Mr Palmer; his sale, London, 1755, lot 21 (to Lord Verney), according to the list of

The principal collections of pictures sold by auction in England in the years 1711-1759,

London, Victoria and Albert Museum, English Manuscript Reserve S. 12, p. 349.

Henry, 10th

Earl of Pembroke, by 1772, and by descent to the Earls of Pembroke; Sotheby’s,

London, 5 July 1917, lot 438 (£1,650 to Agnew).

Henry Lascelles, 5th

Earl of Harewood, and by descent to the present owner.

Exhibited

London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1917, no. 77.

London, Goupil Gallery, 1921, no. 52.

Venice, Ca’ Giustiniani, Mostra di Paolo Veronese, 1939.

Edinburgh, Italian 16th

Century Drawings from British Collections, 1969, no. 94.

Venice, Fondazione Cini, Disegni Veronesi del Cinquecento, 1971, no. 67.

London, The Arts Council, Andrea Palladio 1508-1580: The Portico and the Farmyard,

1975, no. 282.

Venice, Fondazione Cini, Paolo Veronese, Disegni e dipinti, 1988, no. 37.

Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, Véronèse profane, 2004-5, no. 29.

Venice, Museo Correr, Veronese: miti, ritratti, allegorie, 2005, no. 25.

Verona, Palazzo della Gran Guardia, Paolo Veronese: L’Illusione della Realtà, 2014, no.

3.11.

Literature

S.A. Strong, Drawings...at Wilton House, 1902, part 1, no. 3.

D.F. von Hadeln, Venezianische Zeichnungen der Spätrenaissance, Berlin, 1926, pl. 62.

H. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters, 1944, no. 2101.

W. Wolters, 'Der Programmentwurf zur Dekoration des Degeinpalaste nach dem Brand des

20 Dezember 1577', Mitteilungen der Kunsthistorichen Institutes in Florenz, XII (1965/6), p.

298, fig. 12.

R. Marini, Tutta la pittura di Paolo Veronese, Milan, 1968, p. 128.

A. Ballarin, 'Considerazioni su una mostra di disegni Veronesi del Cinquecento', Arte Veneta,

XXV, 1971, p. 109.

T. Pignatti, Veronese, Venice, 1976, p. 156.

R. Cocke, Veronese's Drawings, London, 1984, no. 88.

R. Pallucchini, Veronese, Milan, 1984, pp. 134 and 146.

J. Byam Shaw, 'Veronese's Drawings', The Burlington Magazine, CXXVII, May 1985, no.

986, p. 309.

W. Wolters, Storia e politica nei dipinti di Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1987, p. 279. T. Pignatti

and F. Pedrocco, Veronese, Milan, 1995, II, under no. 295.

W.R. Rearick, Il disegno veneziano del Cinquecento, Milan, 2001, pp. 165 and 226, note 297.

Waverley Criteria:

Waverley 2:

Is it of outstanding aesthetic importance?

This is without doubt one of Veronese’s most imposing drawings and it is the most important

work on paper by the artist to remain in Britain, in either public or private collections.

Veronese scholars have described it as ‘splendid’ (James Byam Shaw), ‘magnificent’ (Cocke)

and ‘indisputably the most beautiful, the largest and the most instructive’ of the artist’s

drawings (Rearick in the Cini exhibition catalogue, 1988).

Waverley 3:

Is it of outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art?

The Apotheosis of Venice is generally accepted as one of only two known modelli for finished

paintings by Veronese. The other, St Justina, was formerly at Chatsworth but was sold in the

1987 auction at Christie’s and is now in the Getty Museum. The Apotheosis relates to one of

Veronese’s most prestigious commissions: the redecoration of the Palazzo Ducale after two

disastrous fires of 1574 and 1578, as part of a team that also included Tintoretto and Palma

Giovane. The finished picture, completed around 1582, occupies one of three large ceiling

compartments in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the room at the very heart of the Venetian

state process, where it is placed almost directly above the dais which bore the Doge’s throne.

This is one of only three known surviving drawings for this important commission. A much

freer, more exploratory Study of horsemen, a captive, a dog and a drum is in the

Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. KdZ 22070) and a Study of a cuirass and armour is in the

Louvre (inv. RF 38934).

In the present drawing, as Cocke notes, Veronese’s aim is not to produce the kind of

presentation modello that would be submitted for approval to a patron, but rather to explore

the interplay of figures and architecture to judge the final effect. This insight into Veronese’s

working method is another aspect of the drawing’s significance. The artist had already made

free sketches of various figures for the composition, as can be seen in the Berlin drawing. He

had also designed the architectural structure for the drawing and this modello seems to be a

first attempt to combine the two. The paper was probably oiled or varnished to allow

Veronese to trace the rather stiff architectural setting from another study. He then developed

the scene through the addition of figures and other details in wash and oil paint on top of this

framework. The addition of squaring in red chalk does not point to this as a final

compositional design, however: there are extensive differences between this modello and the

finished picture. Further studies, such as the Louvre drawing, were made to tackle issues that

arose from this modello, in this case adding some armour to fill the void at the lower left

corner of the composition. There may even have been a more polished final modello which

established the final positioning of figures along the balustrade and in the background of the

lower register, and which introduced the more exaggerated contrast between the scale of

figures and architecture that we see in the final picture.

For its place in Veronese’s career, its status as one of only two known modelli, and its value

as an example of Veronese’s working method, The Apotheosis of Venice is thus a highly

significant drawing with no comparable works by the artist extant elsewhere in Britain.