(Verona 1528–1588 Venice)
Seven Planetary Deities: Jupiter, Apollo, Diana, Mars, Venus, Saturn and Mercury,
oil on canvas, 212 x 90 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Florence;
thence by descent to the present owner

Literature:
D. Gisolfi, Paolo Veronese and the practice of painting in late Renaissance Venice, New Haven/London 2017, p. 96, illustrated p. 95, fig. 149 (as ‘Early copy after Veronese’s ceiling fresco of circa 1557 in Palazzo Trevisan’)

The present painting relates to two detached frescoes by Paolo Veronese originally in the Palazzo Trevisan, Venice and now conserved in the Louvre, Paris (inv. nos. 2183 and 2183 bis).

This work is a visual testimony of one of the rare fresco cycles by Veronese in Venice, specifically at the Trevisan Palace in Murano. The decoration of the palace, now unfortunately in poor condition, was completed in the 1550s when Veronese was at the height of his career, working on projects for the Palazzo Ducale, the Libreria Marciana, and the church of San Sebastiano.

Commissioned by the wealthy intellectual Camillo Trevisan, Veronese frescoed the salon on the first floor of the palace, depicting gods and cherubs on the ceiling and expansive wooded landscapes on the walls. He also worked on a ground-floor room, where he also painted the Olympian gods. The fresco was still documented in Venice in the mid-19th century, before coming into the possession of the French restorer Simon Horsin-Déon and it is now conserved in two parts in the Louvre, Paris (inv. nos. 2183 and 2183 bis).

The present composition shows the two parts united. On one end Jupiter, Apollo, Diana, and Mars are depicted and on the other, Venus, Saturn, and Mercury. The central section is occupied by a group of flying putti, playing instruments or holding allegorical symbols such as crowns and cornucopias. It is likely that the present work was either a model created in Veronese’s workshop to study the composition, or a ricordo to preserve it for potential reuse by the studio in later projects.