Alessandro Varotari, called il Padovanino

Probably in the collection of Daniel Dolfin, Venice, 1681;
Private collection, Munich;
Eduard Safarik, 2000:
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2002.

The painting is warmer in tone than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas has been recently and effectively relined. The paint surface is clean and secure, if somewhat abraded throughout. Inspection under UV light reveals some localised strengthenings throughout as well as quite extensive restoration, for example lower right, in the sky, in the arms in the centre of the composition. There is a tear in the face and neck of the central grace which has been sympathetically restored. Further restorative work has occurred along the left edge, especially lower left. The work is offered in a fine carved and gilt wood frame in good condition.
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Alessandro Varotari, il Padovanino, was born in Padua, as his name suggests. He settled in Venice in 1614 and is best known as an imitator and admirer of Titian.  Although he did make some direct copies after Titian he was also an inventive and skilled artist in his own right.  The present composition has no known prototype amongst Titian's oeuvre, however the classical expression of form, the sense of languid movement and the soft flesh tones enlivened by passages of vivid colour in the billowing material are all reminiscent of the earlier venetian master.  Padovinino was not only important in continuing Titian's legacy into the Seicento but also in transmitting it to a younger generation of artists, including Pietro Liberi, Pietro della Vecchia and Girolamo Forabosco, through his teaching.

Padovanino is recorded as painting this subject on three other occasions, including a painting formerly in the collection of Jan Czernin, Prague and another recorded in the Widmann collection, Venice, both now lost.   The only versions known today are the present painting and the larger canvas in the Hermitage, St Petersburg.¹ The latter composition is more elaborate with the three graces depicted in full length and the addition of four playful putti. 

A note on the Provenance:
It is likely that this was the painting described as "mezze figure di tre donne ignude" in 1681 in the Dolfin Collection in Venice.²

1. See T.D. Formichova, The Hermitage. Catalogue of Western European Painting. Venetian Painting. Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Florence 1992, p. 236, no. 179.
2. C.A. Levi, Le collezioni veneziane d'arte e d'antichità dal secolo XIV ai nostri giorni, Venice 1900, p. 72.