The importance of the emerging museum lies in the unique character of its heritage which, due to the strong presence of foreign artists, presents itself as an eccentric, new, and stimulating cultural offering compared to the traditional art itineraries of most historic Italian museums, which are strongly and almost exclusively connected to their local territories. The presence of sketches and preparatory studies, copies and replicas, typical of a recently formed collection acquired entirely from the antique market, is of great interest and provides, especially for religious subjects of grand Counter-Reformation painting, valuable vectors of knowledge and further investigation for art history. Especially treasured is the corpus of drawings including inks, pastels, charcoals, pencils, sanguine, watercolors on paper or parchment, by Italian and European artists, dated between the 16th century and the early 20th century. The already published critical studies, cataloging, and interventions on the concise guide testify to the extreme variety and complexity of the heritage as it currently stands in our knowledge. At the same time, plans are underway to encourage and design new reflections and contributions, involving multiple researchers and specialists, to systematically address the numerous still-open questions regarding attribution problems, unidentified iconographic subjects, chronologies, and cultural domains awaiting a more certain definition. The museum exhibition project has attempted to preserve the perception and sense of heritage as belonging to a private collection, seeking to highlight the common thread that, over the years, has guided the donors’ acquisitions, exchanges, and discoveries. Therefore, the goal was to suggest multiple paths of inquiry that, each time, accompany or provoke curiosity, desire for knowledge, and an urge for further study, experimentation, and a return visit to the museum around the works on display. The exhibition path, structured into five sections from the 16th to the 20th century, includes about 170 paintings, mainly arranged according to chronological criteria but also based on the context of the individual works. Off the main itinerary, there is a charming small fragment of painting on wood with a Head of a Saint, received as a donation with an oral attribution by Federico Zeri to the 14th-century painter Giovanni da Rimini, which, due to the sinuous quality of its line, appears more modern than the archaic Gothic style of Giovanni, nevertheless highlighting the appeal of primitive Italian art to collectors. The 16th century is represented by artists among whom stand out Veronese, El Greco, and Giovan Filippo Criscuolo. The century opens with a small group of icons by Cretan painters, connected to the phenomenon of circulating objects and masters after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and the subsequent exodus of painters into the Aegean, but the group of works from this century also extends to central-northern Italy and beyond the Alps, beginning with the portrait of Saint Charles Borromeo by Giovanni Antonio Figino and the Saint John the Baptist by the Flemish Jan Soens. The collection also includes some fine examples of Venetian painting, with a Portrait of a Gentleman, which by its very high quality recalls the splendid chapter of Titian’s portraiture, and the Ecce Homo by Leonardo Corona. The “two golden centuries” of 17th and 18th-century grand Baroque painting are well represented. Aside from Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi, Beinaschi, and Lanfranco, notable works include the beautiful panel with Christ Mocked attributed to Bernardino Mei; preparatory studies and sketches like the model for the altarpiece The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus by Poussin for St. Peter’s, The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence by Le Sueur for the large panel formerly in Saint-Germain L’Auxerrois in Paris (now in the Buccleuch and Queensbury Collection), Saint Peter Delivered from Prison by Vouet from a lost original related to the later version by Chrestien, Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit Fed by a Raven by Francesco Fracanzano, and more. There are also portraits by Baglione, Miel, Voet, and one attributed to Velázquez, as well as still lifes and mythological scenes. For the 18th century, alongside the major Neapolitan school represented by, among others, De Matteis, De Mura, Falciatore, Giaquinto, Giacinto Diano, and Sebastiano Conca, there are works by D’Anna and Mariano Rossi, Narici with the sketch for the Marcianise altarpiece, Batoni, Milani with the study for The Death of Uzzah. Notable is the openness to great European culture, with Melendez and Lorenzo Tiepolo, Füssli, Hamilton, Gros, Delacroix, von Lenbach, and Winterhalter. Equally remarkable is the portion of works from the 19th and 20th centuries where, alongside French, German, English, and Danish paintings, an important number of predominantly southern Italian works stand out, with special attention to Neapolitan and Apulian artists—a sector which has, only in recent decades, finally begun receiving due critical attention: from Gioacchino Toma to Giuseppe De Nittis, from Domenico Morelli to Giuseppe Casciaro to Francesco Netti, from Federico Rossano to Francesco Speranza, from Salvatore Fergola to Michele Cammarano, to Mancinelli, and, lastly, the many drawings. As for contemporary art, alongside Bernard, De Carolis, Sartorio, and Marasco, there are the unique presences of Joseph Stella and Beatrice Wood, whose donation includes five watercolors and pastels that document the collectors’ interest in transatlantic culture. For the drawings—which require a different mode of access and preservation—and the paintings currently not on display, a room will be dedicated, equipped with special drawers for proper conservation, consultation, and study, computer workstations for querying the collection’s database, and, finally, equipped and visitable storage.
Information about the National Gallery of Apulia “Girolamo e Rosaria Devanna”
Via Giandonato Rogadeo, 14
03029 Bitonto (Bari)
0803716184
https://www.gallerianazionalepuglia.beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
