Home > Le Copie nella Storia

   The art of copying paintings dates back to very remote time periods and has always had a role of great importance in the development of the history of art, both for the public and for the artists themselves. In fact a large number of great artists of the past trained themselves thanks to the observation and reproduction of the works of their "masters".

The history of art bears witness to innumerable examples:
   Michelangelo, still aged only fourteen, received his training at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in the midst of classical statues and the works of Masaccio.

The Flemish painters admired the Renaissance artists so much that they studied them thoroughly, copying their works:
   Peter Paul Rubens alternated between copies and his own paintings; it is to him that we now owe the pleasure of being able to admire The Battle of Anghiari, painted by Leonardo da Vinci and later irretrievably lost. He also made an admirable copy of the Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione, by Raffaello Sanzio.
   Rembrandt had an unrestrained admiration for Raphael, many of whose works he reproduced, including another version, surprisingly similar, of the Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione.
   The Madonna of the Carnation by Leonardo da Vinci, thanks to the skill of two Flemish masters, is present in two copies, one in St. Petersburg and one in the Louvre.

Many other talented artists took pleasure in reproducing the works of Raphael;
   the Holy Family, also called the Madonna of the Veil, exists in many copies (Louvre, Florence, Rome, New York), a true stroke of luck as the original has been destroyed.
   The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci is accessible at two sites, one at the Louvre and the other at the National Gallery in London. What not everyone knows is that the latter version has been attributed to Evangelista de Predis.
   Titian was another eminent admirer and student of Raphael's work, and produced the copy of the Portrait of Julius II, which we can admire today at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

Art from later periods than the Renaissance has also been the subject of great interest:
   the Spanish painter Josef Ribera with his painting Allegory of Taste is present in many museums thanks to the artists who reproduced this work.
   Moreover, the reproductions of the scenes painted by Canaletto and Guardi are innumerable.

The imitation of the greatest masterpieces also continued into modern times.
   Vincent van Gogh, who as a hobby reproduced the work of artists such as Millet and Daumier, is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists of the period. Particularly famous is his copy of Eugène Delacroix' Pietà.
   Around the mid-1890s, the works of Degas, and particularly his pictures of ballerinas, were so sought after that the merchant Paul Durant Ruel asked Federico Zandomeneghi, a renowned Venetian artist and a friend of Degas, to produce replicas; these include the copy of Waiting, of which the original is on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
   Paul Gauguin loved to reproduce the work of his Impressionist colleagues and friends;
   Pablo Picasso reproduced any painting that pleased him.

Possessing a copy of a work of art jealously guarded in a museum is a matter of great prestige, since it is true that many distinguished men possess entire collections of copies of masterpieces.