Carlo Maratti’s additions to the ‘Barberini Venus’

In 1999-2000 the Barberini Venus was the subject of a complex and controversial restoration which involved the removal of some significant areas of seventeenth-century repaint. The work, located in a ground-floor room of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, is a mural painting in oil, and was attributed in 2009 to Giulio Mazzoni by Paola Iazurlo, one of the three conservators who treated it, and who subsequently discussed it in an essay. Beginning in the late 1600s, theBarberini Venus was considered to be Ancient Roman, or even (quite implausibly) by Michelangelo. Scholars were already aware, before the article by Iazurlo, that the painter Carlo Maratti had restored the picture, adding some putti and other elements. It is to Iazurlo’s credit that she found a document of 11 August 1693 in the records of the Barberini Computisteria (accounting office) documenting a payment of 102 scudi and 40 baiocchito Carlo Maratti for the restoration of the Barberini Venus and the painting of some additions to it; these were said to consist of putti and other unspecified elements. The author’s discovery in the Barberini Archives (housed in the Vatican Library) of a detailed description of the payment to Maratti for restoring and adding to the Barberini Venus has now enabled us to consider how the great artist was also responsible for other important additions, unfortunately removed in 1999-2000 because they were not regarded as by Maratti; these included the red drapery, the cushion, and the background to the right of the drapery. Recently, these passages were attributed to Giacinto Calandrucci, a pupil of Maratti, but the discovery of this archival document now makes it possible to refute this additional attribution. Furthermore, the article for the first time reveals that it was Cardinal Carlo Barberini who commissioned Maratti to intervene on the Barberini Venus. The article also addresses, albeit only summarily, the question of removal of repaints, also from the standpoint of conservation theory. The author believes that the elimination of some of Maratti’s beautiful additions caused very grave damage, prompting reflections aimed at avoiding similar decisions in the future. In such cases, conservation should be preceded by detailed archival research, thus preventing the irreversible loss of valuable additions, especially those with an established history. The author also offers a thorough stylistic analysis of the additions made by Maratti, chiefly of the now missing areas, and of some technical aspects of the conservation of 1999-2000, during which both his varnish layers and glazes were removed.