Restored in 2007 with funding from the California Chapter of Save Venice Inc.

These two paintings are all that remain of four canvases that together would have decorated both sides of a set of organ shutters; these two would have been displayed on the interior side of the shutters, and thus visible when they were open. It is not confirmed whether the works were created for an organ in the church of Sant’Alvise or for that of another church.

In 1388, the patrician Antonia Venier sponsored the construction of a church and convent of the Augustian order in honor of Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, after he appeared to her in a dream. Therefore, the depictions of Saint Louis — known in Venetian dialect as Sant’Alvise — and Saint Augustine support a plausible iconographic connection between these works and the church.

At some point in time, the two canvases were stitched together to form a single painting, as was often the case with organ shutter paintings that were removed from their original position. Smaller canvas inserts were added to unify the scene, and the newly reformatted works were displayed out of context as wall paintings in the church.

For nearly a decade prior to their conservation treatment, these canvases had been relegated to a storage closet. Once largely overlooked, the paintings have since emerged as fine examples of the work of Jacopo Palma il Giovane, the leading painter in Venice following the deaths of Veronese (1588) and Tintoretto (1594).

The canvases were restored by conservators Serafino and Marco Volpin, with the guidance of project director Ettore Merkel of the Superintendency of Fine Arts of Venice.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Jacopo Palma il Giovane (1548/50–1628)
Organ shutters with Saints Augustine and Louis
c. 1590-1600, oil on canvas
474 x 172 cm; 479 x 172 cm

Chorus Association: Church of Sant’Alvise

Bisson, Massimo. Meravigliose macchine di giubilo. L’architettura e l’arte degli organi a Venezia nel Rinascimento. Venice: Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 2012.

Mason Rinaldi, Stefania. Palma il Giovane: l’opera completa. Milan: Alfieri, 1984.