The Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice shows their ten new acquisitions, heretofore unseen

The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice has opened to the public the exhibition Da Vivarini a Tiepolo. New Acquisitions for the Gallerie dell’Accademia, curated by Michele Nicolaci, which can be visited until October 1, 2023. On display are ten new works hitherto unpublished because they belong either to private collections or inaccessible, recently bought by the state for more than one million euros. The acquisitions are all on display in a new space(Room XVIa) intended for exhibitions devoted to specific themes and part of the museum’s newly restored and reopened so-called Palladian rooms.

The Galleries are enriched with masterpieces such as the previously unpublished painting Samson and Delilah by the Venetian painter Giulia Lama; the three panels by Bartolomeo Vivarini that join those already in the collection of the Tagliapietra Polyptych; and a drawing by Giambattista Tiepolo, the first drawing acquired by the Galleries depicting two fantasy heads. In addition, the Gallerie dell’Accademia has become the owner of Bonifacio de’ Pitati’s Couple of Lovers (The Declaration); Pietro Ricchi’s sizable canvas with Christ before Caiaphas; a Scene from the Life of St. Peter Martyr by Antonio Vivarini; and a previously unpublished small canvas by Francesco Fontebasso.

“These are different works both in type, from Renaissance polyptych panels to drawings, and in chronology, from the Renaissance of Vivarini to the 18th century of Giambattista Tiepolo, but in each case we are talking about very significant additions to the Accademia Galleries,” said Accademia Galleries director Giulio Manieri Elia.

The acquisitions

The works were acquired thanks to funds allocated to the General Directorate of Archaeology Fine Arts and Landscape and the General Directorate of Museums in the three-year period 2021-2023 for a total spending commitment of more than one million euros. Among the most significant sums are the three panels by Bartolomeo Vivarini, likely belonging to the upper register of the Tagliapietra Polyptych, already preserved at the Galleries, purchased by private treaty for 500 thousand euros.

Giulia Lama’s unpublished canvas depicting Samson and Delilah, on the other hand, was bought as a forced export purchase for the value of 90 thousand euros. The recto/verso sheet by Giambattista Tiepolo, the first to go to the Museum’s Drawings and Prints Cabinet, is worth 34,800 euros. Each of the works carries with it a unique and sometimes singular story, such as the painting by Bonifacio de’ Pitati and the small canvas by Francesco Fontebasso, acquired by the Gallerie dell’Accademia from a bankruptcy estate, but previously the subject of an investigation by the Carabinieri’s Cultural Heritage Protection Unit in Venice.

The new works from the Gallerie dell’Accademia

Bartolomeo Vivarini

Of particular significance is the arrival of three panels by Bartolomeo Vivarini depicting Saints John the Baptist, Catherine of Alexandria, and Niccolò da Tolentino, already notified by the state in 1920. According to a recent reconstructive hypothesis they would belong to the upper register of the Polyptych of St. Ambrose (1477) of the Tagliapietra school, already in the museum’s collections, along with two other compartments now in the United States in the Seattle and Boston museums. Thanks to the recent acquisition eight out of ten panels can now be admired. The exhibition offers a first and evocative opportunity to reconstruct the polyptych, with the new panels flanked by life-size reproductions of the two American ones.

Giulia Lama

In an eighteenth century dominated by male painters, the fascinating figure of Giulia Lama (1681-1747), a Venetian painter already present in the collection of the Gallerie dell’Accademia with the painting Judith and Holofernes, exhibited in Room 6, stands out. Thanks to the new acquisition, the public will be able to admire Samson and Delilah, a canvas dated around 1725-1730, which reappears after a quick report dating back to 1971 by Rodolfo Pallucchini, who placed it in the collection of Luigi Galli. The current work was acquired by Galerie Canesso in Paris in 2022.

The story of Samson, a Jewish hero of superhuman strength fighting with the Philistines, is told in the Bible, in the book of Judges. After having her husband Samson reveal to her that the origin of his strength lay in his hair, a symbol of his devotion to God, Delilah betrays him, cutting off his thick hair in his sleep and, in effect, rendering him helpless before the Philistine soldiers advancing in the background. The work stands out as a high quality proof of Lama’s preference for themes often characterized by the bitter conflict of the protagonists, to which strong chiaroscuro contrasts with the juxtaposition of two or three figures are generally suited. In this sense, Lama develops seventeenth-century suggestions already taken up and made her own by Giambattista Piazzetta, the painter’s main stylistic reference.

Antonio Vivarini

Antonio Vivarini’s compartment, depicting a scene from the life of St. Peter Martyr, was probably part of a dismembered polyptych already documented in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul. The work St. Peter Martyr in his cell conversing with three virgins (ca. 1450) is striking for the lively characterization of the group of figures and for the glazed chromatic quality of the pictorial layering. The other acquisition of the oldest of the Vivarini brothers, is the small panel depicting Saint Benedict (c. 1440-1445). Of particular interest here is its collecting history, having belonged to the Manfrin collection, a collection from which come some of the museum’s key masterpieces acquired in 1856, such as Giorgione’s La Vecchia.

Bonifacio de’ Pitati known as Bonifacio Veronese.

An intense love dialogue, a subject hitherto absent from the museum’s collection, is depicted in Bonifacio de’ Pitati’s Pair of Lovers (The Declaration), dating from around 1527-1528. Formerly in the collection of the Princes of Hanover, this is a rare work by the Veronese painter Bonifacio de’ Pitati (1487-1553), an artist at the head of a flourishing and important workshop in Venice in the first half of the 16th century, known especially for important official decorations. Bonifacio is a painter who is well documented in the museum (Room XII), but who finds in this work a different intonation, inspired by love scenes of Giorgionesque and Palmesque derivation. The painting provides insight into a lesser-known and high-quality aspect of de’ Pitati’s extensive output.

Pietro Ricchi

A remarkably important graft for the Accademia Galleries’ 17th-century collections is the remarkably large canvas with Christ before Caiaphas by Lucchese artist Pietro Ricchi (1606-1675). A wandering painter, Ricchi stopped for a long time in Venice and the Veneto region, leaving traces of his intense activity. In the acquired work (c. 1635-1645), the author gives evidence of one of his best works, inspired by distant Caravaggesque “candlelight” models. From the end of June his Judith, from the Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento (visible in Room 3), will also be temporarily in the museum, a valuable opportunity to compare two masterpieces by the artist.

Francesco Fontebasso

Francesco Fontebasso’s (1709-1769) small and unpublished canvas mounted on panel, of darting and fresh draftsmanship, is titled Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria and Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila and dates from about 1730-1733. It could be identified with the preparatory sketch (or the work itself) mentioned in the guide on Venetian paintings by Anton Maria Zanetti the Younger, which places the work in the sacristy of San Paternian (1732). The juxtaposition of the two iconographic subjects could be due to the precise requests of the commissioner, perhaps attracted by the common mysticism of two episodes: on the one hand the visionary “marriage” between St. Catherine of Alexandria and the Child Jesus, and on the other the amorous delirium of St. Teresa of Avila in contemplation of the vision of Christ.

Giambattista Tiepolo

Closing the exhibition chronologically is the beautiful study, recto and verso, by Giambattista Tiepolo, dated around 1750. It is the master’s first sheet to enter the museum’s graphic collection. With a few masterful strokes and light shadows in watercolor ink, the artist defines two splendid images of man and boy. These are so-called “fantasy heads,” a genre that enjoyed great appreciation in 18th-century Venice.

The presence of two fragments of printed paper on the back of the frame makes it possible to reconstruct the interesting collecting history of the piece that belonged to, among others, Antonio Canova and English collectors Edward Cheney and Richard Owen.

Sebastiano Mazzoni

Already included in the museum’s permanent display and therefore not shown in this exhibition is the sensational Strage degli Innocenti by Sebastiano Mazzoni (1611-1678). It is a remarkably large fragment from a canvass of the church of San Trovaso, purchased in April 2021 and opened in August of that year.

The 16th Hall

The exhibition, which can be visited until Oct. 1, inaugurates the new space of Room XVI, part of the museum’s recently restored and reopened so-called “Palladian rooms,” intended for smaller exhibitions, such as “dossiers” dedicated to specific works and artists, restorations carried out, and temporary loans.

Image: Bonifacio de’ Pitati known as Bonifacio Veronese, Couple of Lovers (The Declaration) (c. 1527-1528)

The Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice shows their ten new acquisitions, heretofore unseen

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