Rome, public-private collaboration to restore Allegory of the Five Senses by Mattia and Gregorio Preti

In Rome, the Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini and Dentons Law Firm initiate a fruitful public-private partnership to restore a monumental painting by Mattia Preti (Taverna, 1613 - Valletta, 1699) and his brother Gregorio (Taverna, 1603 - Rome, 1672): this is theAllegory of the Five Senses, a large canvas with a secular subject of Caravaggesque influence made by the two brothers in the early 1640s, and which has been in storage for years at the Armed Forces Officers’ Club. The work is attested as far back as 1686 in the picture gallery of Maffeo Barberini junior as “un quadro per longo con diversi ritratti: chi sona, chi canta, chi gioca, chi beve e chi gabba il compagno”-a description that underscores the complex articulation of the painting where, according to a model much in vogue in the seventeenth century, different groups of characters intent on daily activities become allegorical images of the five senses.

The restoration will be conducted by Giuseppe Mantella, an experienced professional who has been working on Mattia Preti’s works in Malta and Calabria for years, and will be accompanied by a series of diagnostic investigations that will provide a better understanding of the execution practice of the two brothers, who were active with four hands on the same canvas.

Dentons Law Firm has taken on the financing of the restoration: this is not the first time the firm has intervened in the field of art, since it already supported the restoration of three canvases in the Sala degli Specchi of Palazzo Arese-Litta in Milan in 2016. Dentons thus confirms its commitment, as underlined by Federico Sutti, the firm’s managing partner in Italy: “We are proud to replicate the experience of Palazzo Arese-Litta in Milan also for the Capital, through the restoration of the work of the Preti brothers for the new rooms of Palazzo Barberini. As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility actions, the enhancement of artistic heritage plays an important role, representing an asset and a real ’social asset’ to be protected.”

Satisfaction from Flaminia Gennari Santori, director of the Barberini Corsini National Galleries: “We are very pleased with this relationship with the prestigious firm Dentons, a relationship that once again testifies how public and private can contribute together to the conservation and enhancement of our cultural heritage. The restoration and the investigations that will be conducted on the canvas by Mattia and Gregorio Preti will allow us to finally return to the public a work that has remained invisible for years and at the same time to delve into its history and technique, which will be the subject of an exhibition curated and produced by the National Galleries.”

Once the work has been completed, it will be presented to the public in an exhibition that will provide an opportunity to return to a reflection on the relationship between Mattia and Gregorio Preti and will finally become part of the permanent exhibition at Palazzo Barberini, in one of the new rooms opened to the public last April in the south wing.

Rome, public-private collaboration to restore Allegory of the Five Senses by Mattia and Gregorio Preti

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