Uffizi shops at the Antiques Biennale: as many as seven new works enter the collection

As many as seven works, including four paintings, two sculptures and one drawing, the latter received as a gift: these are the new acquisitions that the Uffizi Galleries have initiated as part of the Florence International Antiques Biennale, underway at Palazzo Corsini until Oct. 2. Thus entering the museum collections are the seventeenth-century paintings Portrait of a Victorious Young Man on Envy by Pietro Paolini, theAllegory “Ut pictura poesis” by Francesco Cairo, Felice Cerruti Bauduc ’s self-portrait in theAtelier with the painter in the act of painting the Combat of Sommacampagna and the ivory Bust of Cosimo III de’ Medici made by Jean-Baptiste Basset, signed and dated 1696; and again, Ferruccio Ferrazzi ’s 1925 canvas Viaggio tragico, and Giacomo Manzù’s sculptural group with the Pietà (1950). They are also joined by a gift from antiquarian Enrico Frascione of a drawing by 16th-century Venetian painter Carletto Caliari, son of Paolo Veronese, entitled Giovinetta con cane: preparatory drawing for a painting now in the Louvre in Paris.

At the past edition of the Biennale, in 2019, the Galleries had acquired an important painting by one of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s favorite pupils, namely Daniele da Volterra’s Madonna and Child, St. John and St. Barbara, which immediately entered the Uffizi’s permanent collection and was placed in the new rooms on the second floor dedicated to 16th-century Florentine, Roman and Emilian painting.

The acquisition of the seven works during this year’s Biennale has already been approved by the Scientific Committee of the Galleries and, as far as modern works are concerned, by the Commission of the Modern Art Gallery of Palazzo Pitti.

“Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of my colleagues, we had a great recovery at the Uffizi this summer, recording the highest visitor numbers ever in July and August: with the revenue derived, the Uffizi Galleries are able to extend their role in the process of protection, to the benefit of the community, by initiating procedures for the purchase of some of the most significant works offered this year at the Biennale,” said Uffizi Galleries Director Eike Schmidt. “In this way, the Uffizi continues the tradition begun with the 2015 edition-which coincided with the granting of special autonomy to the museum-of actively participating, as a buyer, in the Florence Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato, in my opinion the finest fair in the world in this sector.”

Secretary General of the Florence Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato Fabrizio Moretti added, “This partnership with the Uffizi honors us greatly, and the fact that the Biennale, as in past editions, is a nursery of works for the Uffizi, and not only, confirms the museum quality of the exhibition and the excellence of the dealers exhibiting there, to whom goes my warm thanks.”

Uffizi shops at the Antiques Biennale: as many as seven new works enter the collection

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