"afermo quanto di sopra con mio giuramento" : dvanáct benátských malířů osvědčuje v roce 1714 pravost obrazů

The article publishes an interesting cultural and historical document, a list one hundred paintings by Italian, Dutch and German artists from the 15th to the 17th centuries, compiled in the autumn of 1714 by twelve Venetian painters, mostly members of the local Collegio dei Pittori. This notarized certificate (today at the Archive of the National Gallery in Prague), in which they confirmed with their signatures the authenticity of the pictures under assessment and the authenticity of their authorship as declared, was donated in 1934 to the Society of Patriotic Friends of Art, predecessor of the National Gallery in Prague, by collector Joe Hloucha (1881–1957). However, its earlier provenance has yet to be determined. The introductory text sheds light on the emergence of similar experts' reports, which in Venice were a necessary precondition for the trade in Old Masters paintings. At the same time, it seeks to present the personalities of well-known but now more or less forgotten painters who compiled the certificate, bringing us closer to the authorial, thematic and genre mix of the picture collection, and last but not least to indicate the possible identification of some of the works of art recorded in the listing.