VERONESE, Paolo
(b. 1528, Verona, d. 1588, Venezia)

Feast at the House of Simon

1570-72
Oil on canvas, 454 x 874 cm
Musée National du Château, Versailles

The picture intended for the refectory of the Venetian monastery of Santa Maria dei Servi forms a logical development of Veronese's Feast at the House of Simon in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. Magnificent architecture reminiscent of contemporary work by Palladio and Jacopo Sansovino frames and articulates the crowded scene. In the early 1660s, numerous princely collectors vied for the picture, which in 1664 was finally given by the Serenissima to the French King Louis XIV as a politically motivated gift.