Giulia Lama (1681-1747) had a remarkable artistic career, producing major independent works for Venetian churches as well as istorie. In addition, the corpus of drawings attributed to her indicates that she drew after both the male and female nude model. She was also a published poet and reportedly educated in mathematics and philosophy. Yet she is little known outside Italy and far less famous than her contemporary Rosalba Carriera, or her colleague and friend Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. This lack of historiographic visibility is, arguably, linked to literal viewing challenges that have impeded greater study of her works. Four spandrel paintings depicting the Evangelists, attributed to Lama, hang high aloft in the Venetian church of San Marziale above two altars, one dedicated to a miraculous statue, another graced with a Tintoretto altarpiece. Seizing the unusual opportunity for an intimate view of the Evangelists created by their current and ongoing conservation, sponsored by Save Venice, this talk will enquire into Lama’s picture-making process and offer preliminary observations about her artistic technique.

Presented by Cleo Nisse, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art History & Archaeology, Columbia University.

Cleo Nisse is a PhD candidate in art history at Columbia University, New York. Her doctoral thesis addressing the development and significance of painting on canvas supports in Venice is supported by the 2020-2023 Paul Mellon predoctoral fellowship with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. She received her BA in history from Cambridge, UK, then trained as a painting conservator at the Courtauld Institute, London, before turning to art history for her MPhil and PhD. She focuses on early modern Venice and the materials and techniques of artistic practice, with complementary interests in the mutability of artworks over time and the relationship between conservation/restoration and the history of art.

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