Sarzana, after ten years the National Antiques Show returns, at the Fortress

After a 10-year absence, the National Antiques Exhibition returns to Sarzana , reaching its XXXV edition in 2023. In fact, it was since 2013 that the Ligurian event was missing from the roll call: this year, from August 12 to 20, the Sarzana exhibition-market will therefore constitute an additional stop for lovers of the genre. Organized by the Associazione Antiquari Sarzanesi, with Elisabetta Sacconi as curator, with the patronage and support of the City of Sarzana and with the partnership of Confcommercio La Spezia, in agreement with the Regional Museums Directorate of Liguria, the exhibition continues a tradition dating back to 1978: the first edition was held in the old schools on Via XXI Luglio, while later the permanent venue of choice became the Fortezza Firmafede, a masterpiece of Florentine Renaissance architecture, which is also home to the new edition of the National Antiques Show.

The inauguration is for 9 p.m., open daily from 6 p.m. to midnight, with the desire and commitment to make it once again a regular annual event, to be held alongside the famous Soffitta nella Strada, the antiques market held in the streets of Sarzana’s historic center.

The exhibition will see the route unfold between the two floors of the “cellette,” which have just been restored thanks to the important interventions carried out by the Regional Museums Directorate of Liguria, to continue on the terraces to the “Fiorella Carelli Carozzi” Pavilion, located in the Hall of the Magnificent, dedicated to the never-forgotten Sarzana antiquarian. The layouts have been specially designed to create an elegant environment where visitors can best appreciate the works on display. The selection that led to more than 30 exhibitors from all over Italy, whose objects range from furniture to paintings, from furnishings to antique Anatolian and Caucasian carpets.

Among the highlights, the Uomo Arte Gallery (Pisa) will offer Portrait of a Gentlewoman with Flowers by Carlo Ceresa (1609 - 1679), one of the best-known 17th-century painters from Bergamo, who distinguished himself as a portrait painter and as the author of paintings with a sacred subject. Gabriele Di Sarcina’s Antique gallery in Sarzana will present an important Venetian Louis XV walnut-root trumeau, two paintings by Gasparo Lopez known as “Gasparo dei fiori” (1667 - 1732), an Italian painter of the Baroque period, and anAllegory of Painting by Cesare Dandini (1596 -1657). Studio d’Arte Gherardi (Parma) will exhibit an oil on canvas titled Abyssinian Harp Player by painter Alberto Pasini (1826 - 1899), known for his landscapes and genre scenes of Orientalist taste, and published in Vittoria Botteri Cardoso’s monograph of the painter. Corradini Enrico Antichità of Castelguelfo, will offer a marble sculpture by Benedetto Briosco (c. 1460 -1517) and Sine Tempore Studio (Milan) will display a St. Anthony the Abbot, oil on canvas by Flemish painter Matthias Stomer (1600 - 1650). And then again Lombardo&Partners Antiques of Sant’Antonino di Susa known specialists in the genre, will exhibit a rare Ghiordes knot-knotted rug from Western Anatolia (last quarter 18th Sec) and a “Corpus Christi” from the mid-17th Century in boxwood.

The Fortress basement will instead host a collateral exhibition of contemporary art, titled Other Places, curated by artists Paolo Fiorellini and Stefano Lanzardo who, through sculptures, photographs and installations conceived and positioned respecting the evocative particularity of the place, will accompany the discovery of glimpses overlooking imaginary places that belong to a distant past, visions of an equally distant future, where human beings live a mythological dimension directly connected with nature and the planet that hosts us.

An important event will be a meeting that will have as its protagonist art and the city of Sarzana, curated by Elisa Acanfora, associate of History of Modern Art at the Department of European and Mediterranean Cultures (DiCEM) of the University of Basilicata, a specialist in seventeenth-century Florentine and southern art. A choice, that of the theme, intended to sanction the link between the area’s cultural and artistic heritage and the exhibition. In the hallway it will be possible to enjoy dishes from the restaurant “Fuìn Cucina e Bottega” by Sarzano chef Giacomo Devoto.

The full list of exhibitors: Ad.Res - La Spezia; Antichità La Pieve - Sabbio Chiese (Bs); Antique Di Sarcina Gabriele - Sarzana (Sp); Ars Antiqua - Milan; Bonanomi Antiquariato - Moncalvo - (At); Brun Fine Art - Milan; Bulgarelli Fausto - Carpi (Mo); Capozzi Antichita - Genoa; Casa D’aste Sammarinese - Dogana (San Marino); Corradini Enrico Antichià - Castelguelfo (Pr); Galleria Uomo Arte - Pisa; Hampel Fine Art Auctions - Munich; Lombardo & Partners Antiques - Sant’Antonino Di Susa (To); Marco Scalbrini Antichità - Carpi (Mo); Odisseus I Sthlm Ab - Nacka (Sweden); Phidias Antiques - Reggio Emilia; Raffaello Pernici - Best Ceramics - Rosignano Marittimo (Li); Sine Tempore Studio - Milan (Italy); Studio D’arte Gherardi - Parma (Italy); Tacchinardi Giampiero - La Spezia (Italy).

Entrance fee: 8 euros. For information +39 3356447821, mna.sarzana@libero.it

Sarzana, after ten years the National Antiques Show returns, at the Fortress

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