The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee

David Corte (Genoa, 1602–1637)
The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee
copy of the work by Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese
oil on canvas,1650-51
The Veronese Room

This is one of the most celebrated copies of the work painted by the great master Paolo Veronese around 1556 for the refectory of the monastery of Santi Nazario and Celso in Verona. It was commissioned by Giovanni Filippo Spinola and produced in Genoa between 1651 and the beginning of the next year to replace the original purchased by him from the friars in Verona. For reasons that are still unclear, however, it remained in Genoa before following the original Feast in its subsequent travels. The latter entered the collection of Gerolamo Ignazio Durazzo after 1737 and was hung in what was then to become known as the Room of Paolo or Veronese Room. For the rest of the 18th century and the first three decades of the next, Veronese’s masterpiece was seen and admired by a host of foreign travellers, artists and art lovers passing through the city. In 1837, now owned by the House of Savoy, the celebrated original was moved to the royal gallery in Turin, now known as the Galleria Sabauda. The distinguished replica by David Corte, son of the celebrated Cesare and a specialist in copies, has hung in the room ever since.