A never-before-seen Caravaggio was
unveiled in Rome Friday ahead of a show lasting until February
23 at the subject's old home of Palazzo Barberini.The work, a
portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini, is the subject of the
exhibition 'Caravaggio, The Portrait Revealed', the result of a
surprising loan from the private collection to which it has
belonged since the 1960s.
"It is the Caravaggio painting that everyone has wanted to see
for years. It has never been exhibited, lent, or the subject of
exhibitions", said the director of the National Galleries of
Ancient Art, Thomas Clement Salomon, who curated the show
opening Saturday together with Paola Nicita.
"It is an epochal event, and Maffeo Barberini is coming home,"
said the general director of Museums at the culture ministry,
Massimo Osanna.
"Only Salomon could have done it".
As for the work, said Nicita, "it is not a rediscovered
painting, it has been known since the 1960s, but since then it
had only been seen by five or six specialists.
"Not to mention that portraits of Caravaggio are extremely rare,
some have been lost, others have never been traced".
"Here, the monsignor is portrayed in his thirties, with a
biretta and cassock in shades of green, over a pleated white
robe.
In the foreground, a roll of documents leaning against the
armchair, in those contrasts between light and dark and in the
diagonal lines of the figure, which are the hallmarks of
Caravaggio's style..
"But beyond the wonder, the exhibition is also an opportunity to
untie some 'knots'.
"First of all, the dating.
"And then the provenance".
The work was first presented as a Carvaggio by famed art
historian Roberto Longhi in 1963, after an initial attribution
by Giuliano Briganti.
Longhi reckoned the portrait had been in the Barberini's
collection for centuries before becoming part of the private
collection.
Salomon would only say that the collection was a private Italian
one in Italy.
Nicita said it dated between Maffeo's appointment as cleric of
the pope's chamber in 1598 and his departure to Paris as
ambassador to France in 1603.
Asked if there was any hope that Maffeo Barberini will remain
forever exhibited "at home" in Palazzo Barberini, Salomon
replied "It would be a dream".
"Sometimes dreams come true," Osanna said. "We are working to
ensure that its fruition is increasingly wider."
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