17th Century, Genoese School, Portraits Of Roman Emperors

17th century, Genoese school
Portraits of Roman emperors: Vespasian and Domitian
(2) Oil on canvas, 96 x 72 cm
With frame, cm 107 x 83
Inscriptions on the sides of the ovals:
D(ominus) TITVS VESPASIANVS
FLAVIVS DOMITIANVS.XII. (=twelfth of the series)

The present pair of paintings depicts two emperors, Domitian and Vespasian, isolated in a trompe l'oeil oval frame. The noble and haughty frown of the figurants, expressively brightened in a bath of shadows, is skillfully dosed by the artist through the use of essential colors: From the bright red of the purple mantles of command to the shadow of the armor, promptly sparkling in a self-referential celebration of power. The portraits certainly take their cue, but not to conform, to the famous series of Eleven Caesars by Titian. Executed for Federico II Gonzaga, the fifth Marquis of Mantua, the series found its natural destination in a room designed by Giulio Romano himself within the Ducal Palace of Mantua. Titian drew inspiration from the lives of the twelve Caesars of Suetonius, centered on the governmental parable that went from Julius Caesar to Domitian, However, he preferred to start his own sequence with Octavian Augustus, the second Svetonian caesar. The paintings were extremely celebrated and were replicated on several occasions by Bernardino Campi, Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo and Annibale Carracci. The Campi replaced Titian (1537-38) in the execution of the last Caesar, Domitian (1562). Sold by Vincenzo II Gonzaga to Charles I of England, the paintings then passed into the collections of the royal family of Spain, being definitively lost in the fire of the Alcazar of Madrid.
The couple in question reviews Vespasian and Domitian, or father and son. Roman general, Vespasian was emperor from 69 to 79. He was the fourth and last of the famous 'four emperors' and could therefore start the homonymous family dynasty Flavia. Vespasian sat at the consulate in the company of his son Titus, brother of Domitian. Like his father, Domitian began the rise to the government as administrator; after strengthening the military bureaucracy, he adopted when emperor (81-96) a protectionist policy to protect wine producers and farmers, with the intention of increasing grain stocks in order to avoid famine. 

The object is in good condition

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