Catalogue Roberti Fine Art, TEFAF Maastricht 2026 (1) compressed - Flipbook - Page 55
Bartolomeo Della Nave was born in Venice and amassed a very significant collection, which was
later to be dispersed and make up several other notable collections. Most of his artworks are
known from an inventory dated 1636, which is often also assumed to be his year of death. Many of
the paintings in his collection are still together today and form a part of the collection of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The museum’s provenance records show "1636 Slg.
Bartolomeo della Nave, Venedig; 1638-1649 Slg. Hamilton (?); Slg. Leopold Wilhelm," whereby the
intermediary owners are shown to have been James Hamilton, 3rd Marquis and 1st Duke of
Hamilton (d. 1649) and the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (d. 1662). At his death in 1662
Archduke Leopold bequeathed his collection to his nephew, the Emperor Leopold I and from there
the imperial collection gradually became what is today the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Born into a family of artists that included his uncles Palma il Vecchio and Bonifazio Veronese,
Palma il Giovane enjoyed a long and distinguished career. He is believed to have travelled down
through Italy to Pesaro and then to Rome, where he stayed for around eight years, returning to
Venice in 1574, where he likely joined the studio of Titian. Palma was obviously held in very high
regard by this stage because when Titian died, it was Palma who was given the prestigious task of
completing the great master’s unfinished Pietà, today in the Accademia in Venice. Palma proudly
inscribed the picture 'QUOD TITIANVS INCHOATVM RELIQUIT PALMA REVERENTVR ABSOLVIT DEOQ.
DICAVIT OPVS' ('What Titian left unfinished, Palma reverently completed, dedicating the work to
God'), seemingly identifying himself in the process as the heir apparent to Titian’s supremacy in the
city.
At the time of the 2009 sale the attribution to Palma Giovane was confirmed by Dottoressa Stefania
Mason Rinaldi on the basis of photographs.
¹The Self-portrait was sold at Dorotheum in Vienna, 9 June 2020, lot 78; for the Milanese Christ supported by angels
see G. Fossaluzza in M. Bona Castellotti (ed.), Pietra Dipinta. Tesori Nascosti del '500 e del '600 da una collezione
privata milanese, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2000, pp. 76-77, cat. no. 37, reproduced.
²Inv. no. 5187; 150 x 116 mm, see S. Mason Rinaldi, Palma il Giovane, l’opera completa, Milan 1984, p. 162, cat. no.
D.165, reproduced fig. 159.
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl020007510
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