Virginia Vezzi

Virginia Vezzi, sometimes given as Virginia da Vezzo (1601–1638), was an Italian painter, and the wife of French painter Simon Vouet.

Virginia Vezzi
Portrait by Claude Mellan (1626)
Born1601
Velletri, Italy
DiedOctober 17, 1638
Paris, France
EducationFather's studio
Known forPainting, Drawing
MovementBaroque

Life in Italy
Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1624-1626) by Virginia Vezzi, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes.
The 1626 engraving by Claude Mellan that establishes Vezzi's authorship of the Judith; text at lower left reads Virginia de Vezzo pinx ("Virginia de Vezzo painted it").

Virginia Vezzi was born in Velletri in 1601. Around 1610 her family moved to Rome, where she began the study of art, likely under her father, the painter Pompeo Vezzi, and then under the French painter Simon Vouet, ten years her senior, who taught life drawing on the street where the Vezzi family resided, the Strada Ferratina.[1]

Vouet became immensely successful in Rome, and in 1624 he was elected president of the prestigious Accademia di San Luca. In the same year or shortly thereafter, Virgnia was inducted as a member of the Accademia, a striking accomplishment for a painter of her youth and gender.[2] She painted history paintings and miniatures, and also worked in pastel.[3]

The only certain autograph and datable painting by Virginia Vezzi is her Judith with the Head of Holofernes (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes), engraved by Claude Mellan in 1626.[4] This may have been the work that qualified her for admission to the Accademia di San Luca. The painting was auctioned at Christie's in 2006 for EUR 64,480.[5]

In 1626, Virginia Vezzi and Simon Vouet were married in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina.

Other paintings attributed to Vezzi

A handful of other paintings have been attributed to Vezzi. All but one are roughly datable to her years in Rome.

David Mandrella has suggested an attribution to Vezzi for another Judith, this one at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (see Gallery), currently attributed to Simon Vouet,[5] but Mandrella's argument "does not convince" longtime Vouet/Vezzi scholar Arnaud Brejon de Lavergnée.[6]

Consuelo Lollobrigida attributes two other paintings to Vezzi, Self-portrait or Muse (1630-1632) in a French private collection (this would date to Vezzi's time in Paris; see Gallery), and an Allegory of Painting (c. 1620) in an Italian private collection, which Lollobrigida believes to be a self-portrait of Vezzi in the act of painting the young Simon Vouet (see Gallery).[1]

In 1992, Vouet specialist William R. Crelly suggested that Vezzi may have painted the Danaë at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin (see Gallery).[7] Subsequently, a restoration of the painting uncovered a putto and an image of Jupiter that prompted the Blanton to attribute the Danaë to Jacques Blanchard (who painted another Danaë, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon). But as recently as 2013, art historian Guillaume Kazerouni has disputed the Blanchard attribution and repeated the suggestion that the Blanton Danaë may be by Virginia Vezzi.[8][9]

Another painting, of a woman in a red dress with a blue cloak and a cream shawl (see Gallery), has been attributed to Vezzi by Kazerouni and another art historian, Adeline Collange, who both believe it may be a self-portrait; however, Arnauld and Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée do not believe the painting depicts Virginia Vezzi.[4]

An oil on copper Crucifixion has been listed as "attributed to Virginia Vezzi" by the Matthiesen Gallery in London (see Gallery).[10]

Simon Vouet, Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalen (c. 1627), LACMA.

Life in France

Virginia married Simon Vouet in Rome in 1626 and the following year moved with him to his native France, where Simon, as Premier peintre du Roi, was given lodgings in the Louvre in Paris. Virginia was "known for her beauty...and she often served as the model for her husband's Magdalenes, Madonnas, and mythological heroines." (See for example Virginia da Vezzo, the Artist's Wife, as the Magdalen at LACMA.) She also "augmented the teaching activities of her husband by offering drawing lessons to young ladies of good family, thereby beginning a custom traditionally associated with the Louvre."[11]:10–13

The seventeenth-century French scholar Isaac Bullart described her as

...Dame Romaine d'une beauté singuliere, et si bien instruite en l'Art de peindre qu'elle eut souvent l'honneur de travailler en la présence du Roy & de recevoir de sa bouche les loüanges qui estoient deües aux ouvrages de sa belle main, que la France voit encore dans les curieuses estampes qu’on en a mises au jour. (...a Roman lady of singular beauty, and so well instructed in the art of painting that she often had the honor of working in the presence of the King and receiving from his lips words of praise for the works of her beautiful hand, which France still sees in curious prints that have come to light.)[12]

It has been speculated that she may have played a role in her husband's atelier, but aside from the Self-Portrait or Muse attributed by Lollobrigida, there remains "a lack of evidence for her activity as a painter during her years in the French capital."[4]

Virginia and Simon had five children. She died in Paris in 1638.

  • Judith (c.1620-1625) by Simon Vouet (or Virginia Vezzi?), Alte Pinakothek.
  • Allegory of Painting (c. 1620), a self-portrait of Virginia Vezzi painting the young Simon Vouet?
  • Danaë (1620-1630) by Jacques Blanchard (or Virginia Vezzi?) at the Blanton Museum of Art.
  • The Blanton Danaë before the restoration that uncovered the putto and Jupiter.
  • Painting attributed to Virginia Vezzi, possibly a self-portrait.
  • Self-Portrait or Muse, attributed by Lollobrigida to Virginia Vezzi (1630-1632).
  • Crucifixion, oil on copper, "attributed to Virginia Vezzi" at the Matthiesen Gallery, London.
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References
  1. Lollobrigida, Consuelo. "Virginia da Vezzo. Un inedito e qualche riflessione," Diana, nr. 2/2011, pp. 64-69.
  2. Rebecchi, Silvia. "Quando il matrimonio è d'arte. Simon Vouet, Virginia da Vezzo e la sua 'Giuditta con la testa di Oloferne'". storiedellarte.com. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  3. Profile at the Dictionary of Pastellists Before 1800.
  4. "Simon Vouet, Study of a Young Woman as the Virgin". sothebys.com. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  5. Virginia Vezzi, o da Vezzo (Velletri 1601-1638 Parigi), Giuditta (Christie's auction catalogue page)
  6. Brejon de Lavergnée, Arnauld. "Simon Vouet. Nantes and Besançon" (review of the exhibition). The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 151, No. 1272 (Mar., 2009), pp. 187-189.
  7. Crelly, William R. "Marcello Giovanetti: Sonnets et tableaux" in Simon Vouet: Actes du colloque international Galeries nationales du Grand Palais 5-6-7 février 1991, edited by Stéphane Loire, Paris: La Documentation Française, 1992, pp. 178-9.
  8. Rykner, Didier. "A Work by Jacques Blanchard Identified in Austin". thearttribune.com. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
  9. Rykner, Didier. "Judith and Holophernes by Virginia da Vezzo". thearttribune.com. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  10. "Crucifixion (Virginia Vezzo)". matthiesengallery.com. Retrieved 2019-10-26.
  11. Crelly, William R. The Paintings of Simon Vouet. Yale University Press, 1962.
  12. Bullart, Isaac. Academie des Sciences et des Arts, contenants les Vie et les Eloges Historiques des Hommes Illustres..., volume 2, "Simon Vouet," pp. 490-492. Paris, 1682.

Further reading
  • Michel, O. "Virginia Vezzi et l’entourage de Simon Vouet à Rome" in S. Loire (ed.), Simon Vouet: Actes du colloque international, Grand Palais, 5–7 February 1991, pp. 123–33.
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