| Venus plays the Harp (Allegory of Music) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Giovanni Lanfranco |
| Year | circa 1634 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 214 cm× 150 cm(84 in× 59 in) |
| Location | Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome |
Venus plays the Harp (also known as an Allegory of Music) is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Lanfranco. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
The work was painted by Lanfranco prior to his departure in 1634 for Naples. It was made for the musician Marco Marazzoli, also called Marco dell’Arpa (Marco of the Harp) for his skill with the instrument. The semi-disrobed female playing the instrument in the painting is identified with Venus by virtue of the amoretti in the background. The engraved bees on the wooden triple harp identify it as belonging to the Barberini family. This instrument is on display in the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali in Rome. Marazzoli, after his death, left it to his patron the cardinal Antonio Barberini. [1]
Antonio Allegri da Correggio, usually known as just Correggio was an Italian Renaissance painter who was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the sixteenth century. In his use of dynamic composition, illusionistic perspective and dramatic foreshortening, Correggio prefigured the Baroque art of the seventeenth century and the Rococo art of the eighteenth century. He is considered a master of chiaroscuro.
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Giovanni Lanfranco was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.
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The triple harp is a type of multi-course harp employing three parallel rows of strings instead of the more common single row. One common version is the Welsh triple harp, used today mainly among players of traditional Welsh folk music.
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Marco Marazzoli was an Italian priest and Baroque music composer.
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Mystical Marriage of St Catherine and Saints is an oil-on-panel painting by Lorenzo Lotto, signed and dated 1524, now in the Collections of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome, Italy.
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