Capodimonte masterpieces return to Naples from Texas amid general silence

After more than six months away, finally the approximately forty works that the National Museum of Capodimonte in Naples had loaned to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, have returned to the Campania museum. This is confirmed by sources close to the museum: the works, in fact, have returned to Campania without the institution having issued any note or statement at the moment.

The exhibition to which the forty or so masterpieces had been loaned(Flesh and Blood. Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum) had in fact aroused bitter controversy due to the fact that Capodimonte deprived itself of virtually all of its iconic works for three months, which later became six due to the coronavirus emergency. Gone to America were such strongly identifiable masterpieces as Caravaggio’s Flagellation (which although owned by the Fondo Edifici di Culto has been in storage at Capodimonte for decades and has become its main “star”), Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes, the Parmigianino’sAntea, Titian’s Danae, Guido Reni’sAtalanta and Hippomenes, Annibale Carracci’s Pietà, José de Ribera’s St. Jerome and the Drunken Silenus, and many works from the 17th-century Neapolitan school, from Battistello Caracciolo to Massimo Stanzione. And the exhibition had been strongly criticized because there were no sound scientific reasons for sending such a large and important body of works to Texas.

The exhibition was initially scheduled to run from March 1 to June 14, but it had closed after only a few days of opening due to measures to contain the Covid-19 contagion: the closure was therefore postponed to August 16. Today, after half a year of absence, the works have therefore returned, in total silence, exactly as in silence they had left, since the departure for America had also taken place in silence. Now the hope of Neapolitans is that the works will remain in the museum -- long enough to admire them all together.

In the image, provided by the Mo(n)stre Facebook page, the arrival of the Flagellation.

Capodimonte masterpieces return to Naples from Texas amid general silence

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