Venice and St. Petersburg meet in an exhibition in Mestre that brings the Hermitage works back home

The State Hermitage Museum holds one of the richest collections of Venetian art in the world-a collection that is now partly returning to the Veneto region, and to be exact to Mestre, to be displayed at the exhibition Venice and St. Petersburg. Artists, Princes and Merchants, scheduled from December 18, 2018 to March 29, 2019. The birth of the Hermitage’s Venetian collection is among the most compelling chapters in the history of collecting, still surprising us today with new discoveries and extraordinary finds. The exhibition, exceptionally designed for the Venetian mainland exhibition venue in the Candiani Cultural Center in Mestre, documents through a group of paintings and drawings (some of which have never been exhibited in Italy) the paths that led the art of the Serenissima to the Hermitage, highlighting fascinating figures of collectors and merchants.

Each of the selected works summarizes, in its own historical story, a specific episode in the formation of the Russian museum’s collection of Venetian art. Thus, paintings by the greatest Venetian artists from the 16th century onward, such as Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Bellotto, Canaletto, Tiepolo, and Guardi, will be on display. At the same time space will be given to the relationships between Venetian masters and Russian patrons during the eighteenth century, juxtaposing drawings by artists in both the collections of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and the Hermitage. This is the case of Giacomo Quarenghi, whose Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Museo Correr possesses 45 largely unpublished sheets, which will be flanked by drawings by Bartolomeo Tarsia, Pietro Antonio Novelli and Francesco Fontebasso: artists who expressed precisely in their activity for the Russian court some of the most fertile moments of their creativity. Finally, two “twin” collections present in both Venice and St. Petersburg are linked to the name of Giambattista Tiepolo: these are the Gatteri and Beurdeley albums containing chalk drawings on blue paper, a selection of which will be exhibited together for the first time. An itinerary with masterpieces lent by one of the largest and most important museums in the world, in an unconventional place for ancient art; an event made possible thanks to the Collaboration Agreement between the Municipality of Venice and the State Hermitage Museum - as part of the Italy-Russia agreements - for the establishment and Venice of "Ermitage Italia."

The exhibition is curated by Irina Artemieva and Alberto Craievich. For all information you can call +39 041 2405211, send an email to info@fmcvenezia.it or visit the Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia website by clicking here.

Venice and St. Petersburg meet in an exhibition in Mestre that brings the Hermitage works back home

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