The importance of the emerging Museum lies in the uniqueness of its heritage which, due to the strong presence of foreign artists, is configured as an eccentric, new, and stimulating cultural offering compared to the traditional art routes of most historic Italian Museums, which are strongly and almost exclusively connected to their local territories. Of great interest is the presence of sketches and preparatory studies, copies and replicas, characteristic of a recently formed collection entirely sourced from the antique market and which, especially for the religious subjects of great Counter-Reformation painting, constitute valuable vehicles of knowledge and insights for art history. The precious corpus of drawings includes inks, pastels, charcoal, pencils, sanguine, watercolors on paper or parchment, by Italian and European artists, dating from the 16th to the early 20th century. The already published critical studies, the cataloging, and the interventions on the brief guide account for the extreme variety and complexity of the heritage as currently known. At the same time, new reflections and contributions are intended to be encouraged and planned, expanded to more scholars and specialists, to systematically address the many still open questions relating to attribution issues, unidentified iconographic subjects, chronologies, and cultural contexts awaiting more certain definition.
The museum arrangement project has tried to preserve the perception and sense of private collection heritage of the collection, seeking to bring out the common thread that over the years has suggested purchases, exchanges, and discoveries to the donors. Therefore, it has aimed to suggest multiple learning paths that, time after time, satisfy or ignite curiosity, desire for knowledge, eagerness for in-depth study, experimentation, and the wish to revisit the Museum.
The visit route, organized into five sections from the 16th to the 20th century, houses about 170 paintings arranged according to a predominantly chronological criterion but also considering the contexts of the individual works.
Outside the route is a delightful little fragment of panel painting showing a Head of a Saint, donated orally attributed by Federico Zeri to the 14th-century painter Giovanni da Rimini but, in the sinuous quality of the line, more modern than the archaic Giotto-esque style of Giovanni, nonetheless emphasizing the fortune of the Italian Primitives in art collecting circles.
The 16th century is represented by artists including the Veronese, El Greco, and Giovan Filippo Criscuolo. The century opens with a small group of icons by Cretan painters linked to the phenomenon of the circulation of artifacts and craftsmen following the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 and the diaspora of painters in the Aegean, but the body of works from the century also extends to central-northern Italy and beyond the Alps starting from the portrait of Saint Charles Borromeo by Giovanni Antonio Figino to the Saint John the Baptist by the Flemish Jan Soens. The collection also features some fine examples of Venetian painting with a Portrait of a Gentleman, which due to its very high quality refers back to the splendid chapter of Titian-influenced portraiture, and the Ecce Homo by Leonardo Corona.
Well represented are the “two golden centuries” of great Baroque painting of the 17th and 18th centuries. Beyond Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi, Beinaschi, Lanfranco, mention should be made of the beautiful panel with Christ Mocked attributed to Bernardino Mei, the preparatory studies and sketches such as the model for the altarpiece of the Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus by Poussin for Saint Peter’s, the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence by Le Sueur for the great altarpiece formerly in the church of Saint-Germain L’Auxerrois in Paris, now in the Buccleuch and Queensberry collection, Saint Peter Freed from Prison by Vouet, of a lost original to which the later version by Chrestien is added, Saint Anthony the Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit Fed by a Raven by Francesco Fracanzano. Also featured are portraits by Baglione, Miel, Voet, and one attributed to Velazquez, still lifes, and mythological scenes. For the 18th century, alongside the great Neapolitan school represented among others by De Matteis, De Mura, Falciatore, Giaquinto, Giacinto Diano, and Sebastiano Conca, are present D’Anna and Mariano Rossi, Narici with the sketch for the altarpiece of Marcianise, Batoni, Milani with the study for The Death of Uzza. Notable is the opening to great European culture, with Melendez and Lorenzo Tiepolo, Füssli, Hamilton, Gros, Delacroix, von Lenbach, Winterhalter.
Equally remarkable is the core of paintings between the 19th and 20th centuries where alongside French, German, English, and Danish paintings stands a substantial number of Italian works essentially from the southern area, with particular regard to Neapolitan and Apulian artists, a sector that has only recently begun to receive proper 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, finally the numerous drawings. Regarding contemporary art, alongside Bernard, De Carolis, Sartorio, Marasco, the singular presences of Joseph Stella and Beatrice Wood should be recorded, of whom the donation includes five watercolors and pastels documenting the collectors’ interests in overseas culture. Drawings, which require a different mode of use and preservation, and paintings, which it has been decided not to exhibit at the moment, will be housed in a specially equipped room with appropriate drawers for proper conservation, consultation and study, computer stations for querying the database of the entire collection, and finally equipped and visitable storage.
Information about the National Gallery of Apulia “Girolamo and Rosaria Devanna”
Via Giandonato Rogadeo, 14
03029 Bitonto (Bari)
0803716184
https://www.gallerianazionalepuglia.beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
