Corrado Giaquinto Allegory of Justice and Peace 1753-54 oil on canvas Prado |
"Imitations produce pain or pleasure not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the imagination is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not supposed capable to give us shade, or the fountains coolness; but we consider how we should be pleased with such fountains playing beside us and such woods waving over us."
– from Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare (1765)
Alessandro Magnasco The Tame Magpie ca. 1707-08 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini Bacchus and Ariadne 1720s oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Marco Ricci Roman Capriccio 18th century gouache Morgan Library, New York |
Marco Ricci Classical Capriccio 18th century gouache Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
Sebastiano Ricci Bacchus and Ariadne ca. 1700-1710 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
Sebastiano Ricci Fall of the Rebel Angels ca. 1720 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
Gian Paolo Panini Roman ruins with figures ca. 1730 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
Jacopo Amigoni Bacchus and Ariadne 18th century oil on canvas private collection |
Jacopo Amigoni Venus and Adonis 18th century oil on canvas private collection |
Giambatista Pittoni Sacrifice of Polyxena 1733-34 oil on canvas Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
Giambattista Pittoni Sacrifice of Isaac 18th century oil on canvas San Francesco della Vigna, Venice |
Jacopo Amigoni The singer Carlo MarĂa Broschi, known as Farinelli 1750 oil on canvas Real Academia, Madrid |
Jacopo Amigoni The singer Farinelli with companions ca. 1750-52 oil on canvas National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
The final painting is a group portrait depicting (from left to right) the librettist Pietro Metastasio, soprano Teresa Castellini, counter-tenor Carlo Maria Broschi known as Farinelli, the painter Jacopo Amigoni, and at far right Farinelli's dog and Farinelli's personal page-boy. Farinelli lived from 1705 to 1782. His posthumous fame has now remained alive in continuous, well-documented remembrance for about 250 years, as no other deceased European singer can claim.