Turin, Royal Museums acquire the missing part of Antiveduto Gramatica's Concerto

Extraordinary acquisition for the Royal Museums of Turin: in fact, the institute has acquired the fragment of the Concert with Two Figures by Antiveduto Gramatica that had been discovered last year (we had devoted a lengthy article to the news on these pages) and was on the market. The fragment, depicting a flute player and a singer, complements the Theorbo Player, a work-symbol of the Sabauda Gallery: the two fragments will thus be reunited after centuries. The rediscovered canvas, juxtaposed with the Theorbo Player (it should be specified, however, that musicologists do not all agree in identifying the instrument as a theorbo), recomposes the figurative layout of the painting La Musica, which until now has been known only through posthumous copies and historical evidence.

The acquisition will be presented to the press on Tuesday, Feb. 28, at 11:30 a.m., at the Sabauda Gallery. Visitors will be able to exceptionally view the two masterpieces reunited on the second floor of the Sabauda Gallery from Feb. 28 to March 5, 2023.

The missing fragment was found in 2022 in a Greek collection by London dealer Derek Johns, who subjected the canvas to a lengthy examination, at the end of which art historian Gianni Papi, a specialist on Antiveduto Gramatica, wrote the essay Antiveduto Grammatica, a rediscovered Concert Scene, in which the genesis of the work, the attributive question and the technical condition were explained in detail. The discovery had been made public by antiquarians Massimiliano Caretto and Francesco Occhinegro of the Caretto & Occhinegro Gallery in Turin. The attribution to Antiveduto and the identification as a missing fragment of the Theorbo Player was possible thanks to irrefutable technical, documentary, and historical evidence (inscriptions on the canvas, the collector’s mark on the back of the work, measurements that correspond to those in ancient inventories, and the results of diagnostic examinations that ascertained that it was cut at a time later than it was made to create an independent composition). The painting was probably cut between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the entire composition was known from later copies such as the one, now of unknown location, that emerged in 1922 on the antiques market in Frankfurt and was known through photographs.

As hoped by insiders and enthusiasts, the work thus enters the permanent collections of the Turin museum and the public will finally be able to see the entire painting. More details will be revealed during the presentation on Tuesday 28. For a history of the painting: https://www.finestresullarte.info/focus/torino-eccezionale-scoperta-ritrovato-concerto-parte-mancante-suonatore-tiorba-galleria-sabauda.

Turin, Royal Museums acquire the missing part of Antiveduto Gramatica's Concerto

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