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Lot Essay
This dramatic allegory of the passage of time was first published in 1959 by Nicola Ivanoff as the work of Paolo Pagani. However, in 1973 Antonio Morassi assigned it to the juvenilia of Giambattista Tiepolo and two years later included it in an article on the subject in Arte Veneta. Since then scholarly opinion has been divided as to the validity of these two attributions. Whereas George Knox seconded Morassi's opinion that the painting is by the young Tiepolo and dated it to the years 1716-1718, until recently most historians of Venetian painting have pronounced in favor of Pagani.
An alternate attribution was made in 1983 by Ugo Ruggieri, who assigned our picture to the distinctive contemporary of Giambattista Piazzetta, Giulia Lama. This opinion was endorsed by Keith Christiansen (verbal communication, 3 May 1996), who compared it stylistically with Lama's Madonna in Glory with Two Saints and an Allegorical Figure of Venice of c. 1720-1723 in the church of Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. Also favoring an attribution to Lama for the present work is the late Rodolfo Pallucchini (1995).
Although little is known about the life and career of Giulia Lama, the essential facts of her existence have recently come to light, thanks to the research of Don Gino Bortolan in the archives of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice (for references, see G. Knox, Giambattista Piazzetta, 1682-1754, Oxford, 1992, pp. 86-7). She was born in that parish on 1 October 1681, and her father was the minor painter Agostino Lama (1645-1714). Among her better known works is a Self-Portrait of 1725 (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), showing her at the approximate age of forty-four. That work, and many of the roughly thirty paintings ascribed to her, evince the decisive influence of Piazzetta, who did a portrait of her in the guise of Painting (c. 1720, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).
The first record of Lama's work is an engraving of 1719 made after a drawing by her. In addition, three altarpieces are cited in a Venetian guidebook of 1733, including the one in Santa Maria Formosa. By 1728, however, the artist was said to have retired. She also achieved a certain fame as a poet, a mathematician and a lace maker. For further information on Giulia Lama, see U. Ruggieri, Giulia Lama: dipiniti e disegni, Bergamo, 1973.
An alternate attribution was made in 1983 by Ugo Ruggieri, who assigned our picture to the distinctive contemporary of Giambattista Piazzetta, Giulia Lama. This opinion was endorsed by Keith Christiansen (verbal communication, 3 May 1996), who compared it stylistically with Lama's Madonna in Glory with Two Saints and an Allegorical Figure of Venice of c. 1720-1723 in the church of Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. Also favoring an attribution to Lama for the present work is the late Rodolfo Pallucchini (1995).
Although little is known about the life and career of Giulia Lama, the essential facts of her existence have recently come to light, thanks to the research of Don Gino Bortolan in the archives of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice (for references, see G. Knox, Giambattista Piazzetta, 1682-1754, Oxford, 1992, pp. 86-7). She was born in that parish on 1 October 1681, and her father was the minor painter Agostino Lama (1645-1714). Among her better known works is a Self-Portrait of 1725 (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), showing her at the approximate age of forty-four. That work, and many of the roughly thirty paintings ascribed to her, evince the decisive influence of Piazzetta, who did a portrait of her in the guise of Painting (c. 1720, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).
The first record of Lama's work is an engraving of 1719 made after a drawing by her. In addition, three altarpieces are cited in a Venetian guidebook of 1733, including the one in Santa Maria Formosa. By 1728, however, the artist was said to have retired. She also achieved a certain fame as a poet, a mathematician and a lace maker. For further information on Giulia Lama, see U. Ruggieri, Giulia Lama: dipiniti e disegni, Bergamo, 1973.