The conservation of Saints Mark, Luke, and John was generously sponsored by Anonymous in Memory of Bernice F. Davidson.

Saint Matthew was generously sponsored by Donna Malin.

From February 8, 2024 through June 8, 2024, Giulia Lama’s Four Evangelists from the church of San Marziale were on view at the Pinacoteca Manfrediniana in the exhibition Eye to Eye with Giulia Lama: A Woman Artist in 18th-Century Venice.

As these paintings are normally displayed high above altars in San Marziale, this exhibition allowed visitors the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view them up close following the transformative conservation treatment before they returned definitively to the church in June 2024.

Giulia Lama was born in Venice on October 1, 1681, the eldest of five children. She lived in sestiere di Castello, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa, and remained close with her family, never marrying, and living a mostly secluded life. Her father Agostino was an artist, a pupil of Pietro Della Vecchia, and it is thought that she studied and worked with him until his death in 1714. After her death in 1747, she was buried in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

Little attention was given to Giulia Lama’s life and career until 20th-century scholars Rodolfo Pallucchini and Ugo Ruggeri shed new light on the importance of her role in the development of Venetian painting during the first half of the 18th century as a bold painter with a refined intellect and reserved nature. In addition to her work as an artist, she was lauded for her poetry, embroidery, and scholarly pursuits, transcending the boundaries placed upon women during her lifetime. Giulia’s artistic prowess was dismissed by her male contemporaries to the extent that in 1728 abbot Antonio Conti, an eclectic humanist, and man of science, noted how “the poor girl is persecuted by painters, but her virtues triumph over her enemies.” According to Conti, Lama painted “better than Rosalba [Carriera], so far as large compositions are concerned,” and it is because of her large religious paintings that she is considered one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures of the early Venetian Settecento.

While it was long assumed that Giulia was a student of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1683-1754), the two were in fact close friends who clearly influenced each other throughout their careers. Lama served as a model for some of his portraits, including one that dates to 1715-1720 in which she is shown as a painter at work with her palette and brushes in her hand. Many of Lama’s works from early in her career were once attributed to Piazzetta. Over 200 drawings reveal her as one of the first female artists to have regularly studied nude male and female models from life.

This restoration was undertaken through Save Venice’s  “Women Artists of Venice” (WAV) program to identify, restore, and recognize the overlooked accomplishments of historic women artists in Venice.

Giulia Lama’s canvases of Saint Mark and Saint Matthew decorate the spandrels of the altar that houses the 13th-century miraculous sculpture of the Beata Vergine della Grazie (restored by Save Venice in 2023); directly opposite, Saint Luke and Saint John are above Jacopo Tintoretto’s Saint Martial in Glory with Saints Peter and Paul (restored by Save Venice in 2018).

In his 1733 guidebook of Venice, Anton Maria Zanetti only mentions Saint Mark and Saint Matthew. This has led to the supposition that by the early 1730s, Lama had only just finished these two canvases, with the other two still to follow. However, evidence newly discovered by Save Venice’s WAV Research Fellow Nora Gietz indicates that Saint Luke and Saint John had been completed by 1725, when they were used as prototypes for the spandrels above a different altar in San Marziale. Lama’s contributions can therefore be dated approximately a decade earlier than previously assumed by scholars.

In addition to Lama’s Evangelists, Giambattista Piazzetta’s associates later painted four Prophets and four Fathers of the Church for the spandrels of the first and third altars on both sides of San Marziale. The fact that Lama’s canvases appear to have been the first of the twelve paintings to be completed may also further clarify her relationship with Piazzetta. Contrary to the long-standing assumption that she was his student or assistant, Lama worked independently and, most significantly, on equal terms.

The Evangelists are engaged in the writing of their gospels, the flowing pages of the books emphasizing the activity taking place. Saint Luke is gazing intently at the pages, a bare foot resting on a balustrade, and his ox at his feet. Across from him, Saint John, accompanied by his eagle, floats on a cloud, seeking divine inspiration with an elegantly poised pen. The Venetian patron Saint Mark, his lion lying behind him, looks more relaxed, his gospel on his lap. To his right, Saint Matthew mirrors Saint John’s glance towards heaven as his plume rests on a page of the book held up by his angel. With pictorial vigor, Lama portrays the four figures perched atop the altars’ frames, establishing a connection with both the viewers below and the heavens above. The expressive rendering of these figures – their physical mass, movements, and gestures – convey Lama’s very own personal style.

The 2023-2024 conservation of Giulia Lama’s Four Evangelists transformed the dark paintings, distorted by oxidized varnishes and surface grime, into some of the finest and most vivid of the artist’s works.

Treatment led by Enrica Colombini and her team addressed several condition issues. Following comprehensive scientific investigations that included radiography (X-Ray), Infrared (IR), Ultraviolet (UV), and pigment analysis, areas of lifting and flaking paint were consolidated, tears in the canvas were repaired, and strip lining was added to improve the tension of each canvas on the original stretchers.

The thick layer of non-original surface residues including grime, dark oxidized varnish, and areas of unsightly chromatically altered overpainting from previous interventions were methodically thinned and removed. Small pictorial losses were integrated with removable conservation paints, and a final layer of protective surface varnish was applied.

The dramatic results of this conservation treatment have revealed a surprising use of color, light, and shadow, and suggest the confident working technique of the artist at the peak of her career. Lama employed more vivid and varied pigments than previously believed, and this is particularly evident in the bright reds and blues of the Evangelists’ robes.

Giulia Lama (1681-1747)
Saint Luke
ca. 1725, oil on canvas
223 x 237 cm
Church of San Marziale

Giulia Lama (1681-1747)
Saint John
ca. 1725, oil on canvas
237 x 220 cm
Church of San Marziale

Giulia Lama (1681-1747)
Saint Mark
ca. 1725, oil on canvas
223 x 237 cm
Church of San Marziale

Giulia Lama (1681-1747)
Saint Matthew
ca. 1725, oil on canvas
237 x 220 cm
Church of San Marziale

Aikema, Bernard. Early Tiepolo Studies, I. The Ospedaletto Problem. “Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz,” 26, 3 (1982): 339-382

Barcham, William. L. The Religious Paintings of Giambattista Tiepolo. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989

Gietz, Nora. Eye to Eye with Giulia Lama: A Woman Artist in 18th-Century Venice, Pinacoteca Manfrediniana, 2024.

Massimi, Maria Elena. Lama, Giulia. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 63. Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 2004, pp. 112-114. Link to the article

Pallucchini, Rodolfo. “Di una pittrice veneziana: Giulia Lama.” Rivista d’Arte XV (1933): 399-413

Ruggeri, Ugo. Dipinti e disegni di Giulia Lama. Bergamo: Monumenta Bergamasca, 1973

Zanetti, Antonio Maria. Descrizione di tutte le pubbliche pitture della città di Venezia e isole circonvicine. Venice: Pietro Bassaglia, 1733