Mythologisch-allegorische Darstellung in der Villa Barbaro (nach Veronese)

August Wolf's 1877 copy of a mythological-allegorical scene from the Villa Barbaro frescoes after Veronese captures one of the great decorative programs of the Venetian Renaissance. The Villa Barbaro at Maser, decorated by Veronese in the 1560s, contains some of the most enchanting illusionistic fresco cycles of the entire Renaissance — figures apparently leaning through painted doorways, landscape views extending fictive space, and mythological allegories celebrating the humanist ideals of the Barbaro brothers. Wolf's copy brought a portion of this inaccessible masterpiece to the attention of German collectors and the Neue Pinakothek's public.

Wolf attempts to capture Veronese's distinctive silvery palette, his mastery of illusionistic architectural space, and the elegant, controlled energy of his figure types. His copy shows careful attention to the compositional structure of the original, translated from monumental fresco to an easel oil format.