Pratt in Venice Director Diana Gisolfi gave a paper, “Chiara Varotari (1584–post 1663),” at the Renaissance Society of America’s 68th Annual Meeting in Dublin, Ireland. The paper, part of the panel Women Artists in Venice I, took place on Thursday, March 31, 2022, at 2:30 PM GMT.
Paolo Veronese, unlike his colleague Jacopo Tintoretto, did not himself produce a painter daughter. Via Paolo’s pupils, however, we find female artistic progeny. One of Paolo’s well-known pupils Dario Varotari (1542–1596) is known inter alia for his frescoing of Veneto villas. Dario Varotari ‘s daughter and pupil, Chiara Varotari (1584–post 1663) had a long, successful career as a portraitist. She was praised by Ridolfi and had two female pupils whose work is praised by Boschini: Caterina Tarabotti and Lucia Scaligiero. Chiara Varotari’s fame is based on her elegant portraits, often of women with elaborate embroidered silk gowns, skillfully depicted.This paper will address Varotari as a female painter in the Republic of Venice in terms of Paolo’s technical legacy and in the context of the considerable presence of women in the arti in the Republic.
Chiara Varotari, Portrait of a Young Girl, 1640s (Museo Civico di Padova, n. 134)
The panel, along with another, Women Artists in Venice II, was sponsored by Save Venice, Inc. and forms part of Save Venice’s Women Artists of Venice project.
As part of Save Venice’s 50th anniversary, Women Artists of Venice launched in 2021 with plans to conserve paintings and pastels by Giulia Lama (1681–1747), Rosalba Carriera (1763–1757), and Marianna Carlevarijs (1703–1750) held in Venetian churches and museum collections. The roster of treatments will be augmented in future years as new works are discovered and new attributions made. A goal is to examine, record, and consider for restoration all pre-nineteenth century works by women artists to be found in Venice.
The art history track of WAV is led by Tracy E. Cooper, professor of art history at Temple University, who lectures for Pratt in Venice on the architecture of Palladio. Pratt in Venice studies the work of Giulia Lama and Rosalba Carriera in the Art History of Venice course, and will further explore the presence of female artists and observe the conservation projects of Women Artists of Venice in the 2022 session.
