Fabrizio Chiari ^©  

(1615 ca, 1695)

Expert opinion by Professor Claudio Strinati: "The painting depicting the so-called Homage to Venus (oil on canvas, 171 x 176 cm ) is a very high quality copy and in a fair state of conservation of the very famous painting by Titian Vecellio (currently preserved in the Prado Museum in Madrid) known since ancient times both under the title of Feast of the Cupids (as it is sometimes still cited today) and under the title

the much more famous one, Homage to Venus.  

Titian painted it for the Alabaster Chambers of Alfonso d'Este, Lord of Ferrara. He had prepared in the Ducal Palace of his city a sort of marvelous little studio to decorate which he invited some of the greatest Italian painters active in his time, that is, at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

And among these, Titian obviously stood out for his incomparable fame and intrinsic greatness. The "Homage to Venus" was a resounding success, so much so that it became one of the most beloved paintings by the artists themselves and by art critics, so much so that it was copied by many of the most illustrious painters in Europe between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Rubens, Reni, Poussin!

Our copy, here under examination, probably dates back to the same historical period in the midst of the “neo-Venetian” phase, as Roberto Longhi calls it in his studies on the Este court and its enormous influence. Therefore, our copy could be dated about a hundred years after or a little more than the Titian original executed around 1520, and refer to the Roman environment that had a true cult towards the magnificence of Venetian art when, in the eternal city, the great painter and architect Pietro da Cortona dominated, who, although Tuscan, was a devoted follower of the Venetian masters of the sixteenth century. Among the many students and collaborators of Cortona who dedicated themselves with particular commitment to increasing with their works this fascinating Venetian taste in Rome, I believe it is possible to identify the author of our copy.

Evaluating the pictorial material of our copy and the excellent quality of the drawing and what we could call a true reinterpretation of the Titian style, I believe that the one who executed the painting here under examination was a very precise follower of Cortona. This is the Roman Master Fabrizio Chiari (1615ca.-1695), a highly praised artist in his time, a learned classicist and a scholar of Venetian taste as can be seen in one of his masterpieces, the immense and beautiful fresco depicting the Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau in the so-called Gallery of Alexander VII at the Quirinale, executed in the 1650s.

I seem to recognize here the same hand that executed the magnificent copy here under examination, of marked naturalistic taste, very fine quality of the pictorial material and of the drawing, typically seventeenth-century. A painting, in short, of notable historical-artistic interest and of excellent quality.

Sincerely, Claudio Strinati "
The work is accompanied by a study on the pigments carried out by the faculty of nuclear physics of Professor Paolo Romano, of the University of Catania, which certifies the nature of the pigments.