Antonio Domenico Beverense (?, 1624/26 – Vicenza, 1694), Pair of female portraits

Antonio Domenico Beverense (?, 1624/26 – Vicenza, 1694)

Pair of female portraits

(2) Oil on oval canvas, 38 x 28 cm

With frame, 48 x 38 cm

“It has a precise design, uncommon shapes, beautiful composition. A diligent and worthy painter who is known; he has something of Guercino in him”: this is how Luigi Lanzi mentioned, in his rapid but flattering profile, the artistic qualities of Antonio Domenico Beverense (?, 1624 or 1626 – Vicenza, 1694), noting, in relation to a Marriage of the Virgin in the Scuola degli Zoppi, now lost, a subtle influence of the Bolognese school. The artist's figure has been reevaluated in recent studies, in particular by Ugo Ruggeri, who has traced his profane production, previously obscured by erroneous attributions, often to the better-known Pietro and Marco Liberi. Although superficially linked to the Liberian teaching, Beverense's education was eclectic.  His most important Venetian canvases, the Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple and the Assumption of the Virgin (San Moisè), dated 1665, place his documented activity at a time of change in Venetian painting, heralding the abandonment of the “tenebrous” taste. His style was influenced by the “decorative current of Fumiani, Lefevre and Chéron” and shows a tendency towards luministic dramatism and memories of Tintoretto. Also dating back to 1670 is a small portrait of the curate Giambattista Vinanti, parish priest of San Pantalon, a work thought to be lost but still located in the sacristy of the church. Beverense was particularly appreciated by private Venetian clients for his profane and allegorical subjects, often with erotic connotations, even explicitly.  Several mythological works are attributed to him, such as Venus and Adonis (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), The Toilet of Venus (Banca Intesa Collection) and the Allegory of Time Fleeing (Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Mamiano di Traversetolo): in these canvases, he manifests his propensity for academic compositions, often with figures seen from behind or forced into twists, but with a “sharp and accurate” attention to the definition of the contours and the rendering of the flesh tones. It is within this vein that the two oval female portraits presented here could be placed, characterised by specific physiognomic features, such as the large, roughly drawn eyes, the restrained and reserved expressions, the pointed nose, the well-groomed hairstyles and the typical dimple on the chin that characterises many female subjects in the Venetian painter's pictorial corpus. The last part of his career, before his death in Vicenza in 1694, is characterised by a slightly different production in the profane field, with smaller figures, often scattered in vast and sometimes threatening landscapes. At this stage, his style came closer to the contemporary production of Giulio Carpioni. Examples of this contact can be found in works such as The Death of Leander and Diana and Actaeon, preserved at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen. In this period, Beverense achieved a new formal refinement with a lightening of the colours, embracing the “mineral polish” of Carpione's art. His taste in the 1680s and 1690s also showed a notable affinity with the Roman painter Girolamo Pellegrini, with a view to recovering Veronese's style. His particular epidermal classicism contributed to a style that, in some ways, is singularly ahead of a certain academic "barocchetto" of the end of the century, acting as a trait-d'union with the acclaimed baroque of Pietro Liberi and preceding artists such as Gregorio Lazzarini and Antonio Bellucci.

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