Mantegna and Bellini's two Presentations together in Venice, an exceptional comparison

From March 21 to July 1, the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice will be the scene of an exceptional, textbook art history confrontation: in fact, visitors will be able to see side by side the two Presentations of Jesus at the Temple, one painted by Giovanni Bellini (Venice, c. 1430 - 1516) and the other by Andrea Mantegna (Isola di Carturo, 1431 - Mantua, 1506), in an exhibition curated by Brigit Blass-Simmen, Neville Rowley and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa, with staging by Mario Botta. Mantegna’s Presentation arrives on loan from Berlin and will engage in this sort of extraordinary artistic “competition” with its counterpart painting by Giovanni Bellini, which is instead owned by the Querini Stampalia.

“But it would be wrong,” Giovanni Villa points out, “to imagine them next to each other intent on painting this same subject. Certainly the cartoon, the realization of which required enormous artistic virtuosity, “bewitched one and the other, but no small lapse of time, some ten years, separates the two masterpieces””. “It is the effect,” reiterates the director of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Marigusta Lazzari, "of one of those alchemies that occasionally occur in history. In our case, the impossible became possible in the unraveling of the complex negotiations that led us to grant the loan of our Bellini to the major exhibition on Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, which will open at the National Gallery in London on October 1, 2018, and then move to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin on March 1, 2019. The comparison between the two “Presentations at the Temple” is one of the cornerstones of these exhibitions. Our willingness to lend has been matched by that of the Berlin institution and so, in advance of the London review, we have the excitement of presenting the two masterpieces finally side by side” to the Italian and international public in Querini.

The exhibition will be open during the opening hours of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia: Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday closing day. The exhibition of the two Presentations is included in the ticket price: 12 euros full price, 10 euros reduced. Information can be found at www.querinistampalia.org.

Pictured: two details of the Presentations, Bellini’s on the left and Mantegna’s on the right.

Mantegna and Bellini's two Presentations together in Venice, an exceptional comparison

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