A Pair Of Oil Portraits On Venetian School Panel From The Early 17th Century

A fine pair of oil on panel portraits of nobles from the early 17th century Venetian school attributed to Pietro Dell a Vecchia. Highly decorative and circular in shape, one gentleman wears full armor and the other robes, and both sport extravagant feathered caps. Presented in fine circular frames in carved gilded wood. Pietro Della Vecchia Pietro Della Vecchia was born in 1602 or 1603, probably in Venice. His father, Gasparo, was a painter registered with the Venetian guild, but the young Vecchia probably received his initial training under Alessandro Varotari (1588-1648), known as Padovanino. Varotari was the leading painter of the first half of the 17th century in Venice and his style attempted to recapture the classicism of Titian's early manner. Varotari had a large and prosperous school, and he was compared by the 18th-century historian Luigi Lanzi to the Carracci for the diversity and excellence achieved by his students. Varotari's pedagogy may have inspired Vecchia, who later headed his own academy and was a founding member of the Collegio de Pittori, a precursor to the Venetian academy established in 1752. Vecchia himself was enrolled in the guild Venetian between 1629 and 1640, although his first documented work probably dates from 1626-1628. He was married to Clorinda Regnier (?-c. 1715), daughter of the Caravaggio painter Nicolas Regnier (Nicolò Renieri, 1591-1667). Clorinda was herself an accomplished artist who imitated the mannerisms of her husband and father. Vecchia, Renieri and the Venetian art critic Marco Boschini (1605-1681) were the leading connoisseurs of painting in Venice and served as agents, among others, for the great Florentine collector Leopold de' Medici, whose collection of masterpieces Venetian work is now housed at the Pitti Palace. In the 1630s, Vecchia became Venice's preeminent religious painter, earning him the commission of new mosaics for St. Mark's Basilica in 1640 and the title of ducal painter. Vecchia achieved this recognition through his ability to apply the monumental manner of Venetian historical painting as established by the great masters of the 16th century, especially Titian. This knowledge also served Vecchia in his capacity as a restorer, and confidence in him was so great that he was asked to restore Giorgione's Castelfranco altarpiece in 1643-1645. Vecchia's affection and knowledge of 16th-century Venetian painting is evident not only in his original paintings and restorations, but also in his capricious imitations of old masters, notably Giorgione and Titian. These were not simple copies or counterfeits in the modern sense of the term, but rather feats of virtuosity intended to please discerning connoisseurs. These imitations are recognizable by what may seem today to be exaggerations of the mannerisms of their sitters, but this was perhaps less obvious at the time they were painted. Vecchia's Giorgionesque landscapes and his imaginary portraits of philosophers and bravos, pages and courtesans are also "modern" in that they depend to some extent on the 17th-century taste for bizarre subjects and figures' heads from Caravaggio and Rembrandt. The sophisticated taste to which Vecchia responded in his imitations must also have provided audiences for Vecchia's many depictions of obscure subjects, such as philosophers and mathematicians. Vecchia's interest in cabalism and alchemy was part of the general scientific curiosity of his time, and his involvement in the scientific, literary and artistic academies of Venice is well documented. His only son, Gasparo (1653-1735) was a mathematician as well as a musician and painter. Gregorio Lazzarini (1655-1730), teacher of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), was one of Vecchia's many students.