ATTRIBUTED TO GIULIA LAMA (VENICE 1681-1747)
Allegory of Sight
oil on canvas
45 x 38 cm (17 3/4 x 15 in)

Born to the painter Agostino Lama (1645-1714) in 1681 in the parish of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice, Giulia Lama’s work shows a great influence of Giambattista Piazzetta, who painted a portrait of her in the guise of the allegory of Painting (c. 1720; Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza). The present work is stylistically related to Piazzetta’s two-figure compositions seen in three-quarter length, and is also comparable in its handling to works by Lama such as the self-portrait of 1725 (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), showing her at the approximate age of forty-four.