Conservation generously sponsored by Lafayette 148 New York with additional support from Alan & Sallymoon Bentz and Irina Tolstoy & John G. Gans.

From February 8, 2024 through June 8, 2024, Giulia Lama’s Virgin in Prayer from the church of Santa Maria Assunta on Malamocco was on view in the Sacristy of the Basilica della Salute in the exhibition Eye to Eye with Giulia Lama: A Woman Artist in 18th-Century Venice.

As this painting is normally displayed high on the wall in Santa Maria Assunta, this exhibition allowed visitors the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view the work up close following the recent transformative conservation treatment, before it returned definitively to the church in June 2024.

Giulia Lama was born in Venice on October 1, 1681, the eldest of five children. She lived in sestiere di Castello, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa, and remained close with her family, never marrying, and living a mostly secluded life. Her father Agostino was an artist, a pupil of Pietro Della Vecchia, and it is thought that she studied and worked with him until his death in 1714.

Little attention was given to Giulia Lama’s life and career until 20th-century scholars Rodolfo Pallucchini and Ugo Ruggeri shed new light on the importance of her role in the development of Venetian painting during the first half of the 18th century as a bold painter with a refined intellect and reserved nature. In addition to her work as an artist, she was lauded for her poetry, embroidery, and scholarly pursuits, transcending the boundaries placed upon women during her lifetime. Giulia’s artistic prowess was dismissed by her male contemporaries to the extent that in 1728 abbot Antonio Conti, an eclectic humanist, and man of science, noted how “the poor girl is persecuted by painters, but her virtues triumph over her enemies.” According to Conti, Lama painted “better than Rosalba [Carriera], so far as large compositions are concerned,” and it is because of her large religious paintings that she is considered one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures of the early Venetian Settecento.

While it was long assumed that Giulia was a student of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1683-1754), the two were in fact close friends who clearly influenced each other through their work. Lama served as a model for some of his portraits, including one that dates to 1715-1720 in which she is shown as a painter at work with her palette and brushes in her hand. Many of Lama’s works from early in her career were once attributed to Piazzetta. Over 200 drawings reveal her as one of the first female artists to have regularly studied nude male and female models from life.

By the beginning of the 1720s, Lama received the prestigious commission for the high altarpiece from the church of Santa Maria Formosa, depicting The Madonna and Child with Saint Peter, St Magnus, and the Allegory of Venice. Her reputation in Venice also rests on the Crucifixion altarpiece for the church of San Vidal (San Vitale), painted between 1726-1732 and still in situ. Lama’s third great religious work, dating to circa 1736, is a canvas currently displayed on the right wall in the nave of the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Malamocco on the Lido Island in Venice.

This restoration was undertaken through Save Venice’s  “Women Artists of Venice” (WAV) program to identify, restore, and recognize the overlooked accomplishments of historic women artists in Venice.

This painting comes from the church of Santa Maria Assunta in the small village of Malamocco, on the Lido of Venice. It was first attributed to Giulia Lama in the late 1920s and is usually dated to around 1736. In the complete absence of documentary evidence, it remains unclear what the painting precisely represents and whether it was originally intended for Santa Maria Assunta, leaving its iconography and provenance shrouded in mystery.

The subject has often been interpreted as a Female Saint in Glory, but a lack of attributes makes it difficult to identify the saint in question. The submissive kneeling position, with her hands clasped in prayer stretched out in front of her, may suggest martyrdom; in addition, upon observing the way the dress falls, there is also a possibility that she could be with child. An Assumption of the Virgin at the Louvre Museum in Paris, painted in 1735 by Lama’s friend and colleague, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, may support an alternative hypothesis concerning the subject of the Malamocco canvas. Both artworks depict the protagonist on her knees and dressed in white. However, Lama chose to represent the figure with folded hands in prayer, diverging from Piazzetta’s rendition, and notably omitted the Virgin’s empty tomb and the Apostles below (conservation treatment has confirmed that these elements were not cropped from the bottom of the canvas). Another relevant Marian iconography typically featuring the Madonna in white is the Immaculate Conception, but Lama excluded any associated symbols, making this subject less likely.

Save Venice’s WAV Research Fellow Nora Gietz continues to investigate the possibility that the painting was moved to Santa Maria Assunta from a different location in the aftermath of the Napoleonic suppressions (1806-1814). Former places of worship in the Venetian lagoon may be considered as potential provenance. This includes the small Benedictine Monastery of Santa Maria dell’Orazione, located next to the Malamocco church and dedicated to the Virgin Mary in prayer. Considering the posture of Lama’s female figure—on her knees with her hands clasped—the painting might in fact depict the Virgin Mary in prayer, specifically reciting the Magnificat that she intones after her Visitation to Elizabeth. Through this canticle, Mary expresses joy at expecting the Christ Child, glorifies God, and celebrates the arrival of the Messiah.

The 2023 conservation of Giulia Lama’s painting from Santa Maria Assunta in Malamocco was transformational. Treatment led by Claudia Vittori and her team addressed several condition problems that had resulted in the work being ignored for decades. 

Following comprehensive scientific investigations that included radiography (X-Ray), Infrared (IR), Ultraviolet (UV), and pigment analysis, an innovative consolidation process was used to resolve areas of lifting and buckling paint. Tension problems were treated through strip lining and the replacement of the stretcher.

The thick layer of non-original surface residues including grime, cobwebs and pigeon droppings, dark oxidized varnish, and areas of unsightly chromatically altered overpainting from previous interventions were methodically thinned and removed. Small pictorial losses were integrated with removable conservation paints, and a final layer of protective surface varnish was applied. 

The remarkable results revealed vibrant hues of red, blue, and grey—brighter colors than those previously associated with Lama—and have restored a profound sense of depth, perspective, and movement to the scene. The non-invasive scientific analysis also revealed the artist’s compositional changes (pentimenti) in the face and feet of the figure of the Virgin and the head of the angel below. These investigations also confirmed Giulia’s expert working technique and a masterful use of pigments to create her color palette.

Giulia Lama (1681-1747)
Virgin in Prayer (?)
c. 1736 (?), oil on canvas
260 x 267 cm
Church of Santa Maria Assunta, Malamocco, Lido di Venezia

Gietz, Nora. Eye to Eye with Giulia Lama: A Woman Artist in 18th-Century Venice. Basilica della Salute, 2024.

Knox, George. Giulia Lama, Antonio Molinari and the young Tiepolo: problems iconographical. “Arte Documento,” 11, 1997, pp. 170-177

Massimi, Maria Elena. Lama, Giulia. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 63. Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 2004, pp. 112-114. Link to the article

Ruggeri, Ugo. Giulia Lama. In Giambattista Piazzetta. Il suo tempo, la sua scuola, catalogo della mostra. Venice: Marsilio, 1983, pp. 127-128, cat. 47