Save Venice’s ongoing campaign to restore Vittore Carpaccio’s paintings in the Scuola Dalmata dei Santi Giorgio e Trifone, a confraternity founded in 1451 by immigrants from the Serenissima’s territories in Dalmatia, presents an occasion to re-examine this narrative series and reconsider its iconography, as well as investigate Carpaccio’s creative process.

Building upon new visual and documentary evidence that emerged from the recent conservation of Carpaccio’s Calling of Saint Matthew, art historian Gabriele Matino argues that Carpaccio painted the tax collector Matthew not as a Jewish moneylender, as previously assumed, but as a Venetian moneychanger within his workplace, a banco de tapeto that once faced Campo San Giacomo at Rialto in Venice.

Conservator Valentina Piovan will discuss conservation methodology with the objective of understanding Carpaccio’s compositional technique. Comparing historical documents and recent sources to technical evidence from chemical and physical diagnostics, conducted on the painting before and during conservation treatment, has led to a new reading of the picture in light of its conservation history. 

Details emerging from Save Venice’s current  campaign will be discussed, in particular individual portraits within the narrative scene and how features have at times been altered during past restorations, making it increasingly difficult to put a name to a face.