Major exhibition on Genoese art that was to be held in Washington cancelled due to Covid

The tribulated exhibition onseventeenth-century Genoese art that had long been scheduled to be held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, United States, has been permanently canceled. There was just no way for the masterpieces of seventeenth-century Ligurian art to be displayed in America: the exhibition was originally scheduled to run from May 3 to August 16, 2020, and had already been postponed due to problems with theCovid emergency. New dates had therefore been identified, from September 26, 2021 to January 9, 2022: however, it was just a few days ago that the National Gallery again held the line of caution, only this time postponements were no longer possible, and the American leg of the exhibition was canceled.

“Due to multiple factors related to the worsening Covid-19 crisis,” reads an official note, "the National Gallery of Art must cancel the exhibition A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600-1750, scheduled for September 26, 2021-January 9, 2022. We are deeply disappointed that the exhibition will not be presented in Washington. The pandemic has created a number of complications and a level of uncertainty that would compromise our ability to present this long-awaited exhibition in a way that meets the expectations of our audience and adequately tells the story of this important place and historical period. Only a few weeks before the opening of the exhibition, we were faced with numerous challenges caused by the pandemic. Among others, uncertainties about restrictions on international shipments, the possibility of limiting the number of visitors if the pandemic continues to intensify, and concerns about the health and safety of our staff managing an intense exhibition in confined spaces."

So, the public will only be able to see the exhibition in Rome, at the Scuderie del Quirinale, where it will arrive next spring, from March 4 to June 19, 2022. Curated by Jonathan Bober (National Gallery of Art), Piero Boccardo (City of Genoa) and Franco Boggero (Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Genova), the exhibition will feature about 130 works including paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, drawings and prints, from public and private collections and Genoese and Ligurian churches. On display will be masterpieces by non-Genoese artists attracted to the city’s vital environment, such as Peter Paul Rubens, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Orazio Gentileschi, and Antoon van Dyck, and then again great works by local artists who worked in the city and outside such as Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Alessandro Magnasco, and examples of great Genoese artists who worked mainly in Liguria such as Gioacchino Assereto, Valerio Castello, Domenico Piola, Gregorio De Ferrari, and Bartolomeo Guidobono.

As for sculpture, there are works by artists such as Pierre Puget, Filippo Parodi and Anton Maria Maragliano, as well as terracotta sketches and bronze reproductions of monumental groups. For the decorative arts chapter, the exhibition will highlight the collaboration between Genoese artists and Flemish artisans (particularly Mattheus Melijn and Giovanni Aelbosca Belga) capable of producing some of the most spectacular silverware in Europe. The works on paper, on the other hand, are intended to exemplify the elaborate technique, painterly character and production of autonomous functions that distinguished Genoese drawing during the period. And, again with regard to graphic art, although relatively few Genoese artists explored the etching technique, Castiglione and his follower Bartolomeo Biscaino surpassed any other native Italian engraver in imagination and fluidity: they, too, are featured in the exhibition. Finally, to give an idea of the great monumental fresco decoration, here are the designs of Castello, Piola and De Ferrari, which mark the apex of this tradition as well as one of the great chapters of European interior decoration: the exhibition aims to convey the meaning and beauty of these ensembles through a selection of sketches (preliminary compositional studies in oil) and models (generally definitive, to be presented to the client), some of large dimensions, and through many preparatory drawings .

The exhibition aims to document how the visual arts in Genoa at the beginning of the 17th century displayed an extraordinary variety and richness, reflecting the city’s great wealth, through which artists and patrons were able to bring to life an original expression of the Baroque style. A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600-1750 is presented as the most comprehensive exhibition on seventeenth-century Genoese art in the last thirty years. It was also meant to be the first major exhibition on 17th-century Genoese art in the US. However, only the public in Rome will be able to see it.

Pictured: Bernardo Strozzi, The Cook (1625; oil on canvas, 176 x 185 cm; Genoa, Strada Nuova Museums, Palazzo Rosso)

Major exhibition on Genoese art that was to be held in Washington cancelled due to Covid

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