Allegory of Love: Scorn

Veronese (Paolo Caliari) · n.d.

Medium

Pen and black ink, with brush and watercolor and gouache, over graphite, on cream wove paper, laid down on ivory wove paper

Original size

42 × 42.7 cm (16 9/16 × 16 13/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

Veronese's *Allegory of Love: Scorn* is a rare surviving study that pulls back the curtain on how one of Venice's greatest Renaissance masters conceived his most celebrated allegorical cycle. Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese, worked in sixteenth-century Venice alongside Titian and Tintoretto, and his art is defined by opulent colour, theatrical staging, and figures of almost sculptural presence. This drawing — executed in pen and black ink with watercolour and gouache over graphite — reveals the thinking behind the four large *Allegories of Love* canvases, showing how Veronese worked out pose, gesture, and the interplay of figures before committing to paint. The layering of media gives the study a luminous, almost painterly quality that goes well beyond a simple sketch. The finished ceiling canvases from this series, now held at the National Gallery in London, have been among the most studied works of Venetian Mannerism for centuries, making this preparatory drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago an extraordinary companion piece to that legacy. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the delicate tonal range and dynamic figure work of the original into a medium that gives the image lasting presence on any wall — rendered by skilled artists who work entirely by hand, brushstroke by brushstroke.