By
Inna Rogatchi ©
It
might seem as an artificial question: what new and original can bring an
exhibition of super-classic artist whose works are extremely well-known and who
belong to the Pantheon of those who are the pillars of civilization? As it
happened, life can still bring nice surprises, even under the siege of covid-19
pandemic, and some museums and the people who are working there are able to
produce remarkable exhibitions, containing not one, or two, but several gems in
it. Tiepolo:
Venice in the North at Sinebrychoff Art Museum in Helsinki is the
exhibition of that category.
Tiepolo:
Venice in the North exhibition. Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National
Gallery. © Photo: Hannu Pakarinen.
Tiepolo
in the North
This
exquisitely designed and presented exhibition ( 17.09.2020 - 10.01.2021 ) has another meaningful mark: it is the first
monographic exhibition of Tiepolo in Finland.
The elegant culture event also marks the 250th anniversary of the great
Venetian master’s death. The works of both, Giambattista Tiepolo and
his son Giandomenico, are presented there.
It
is worth to note that there is a special reason for bringing the works of both
Tiepolos to one of the most appreciated museums of Finland, the part of the
Finnish National Gallery. This reason is a special phenomenon of outstanding
popularity and fame of Tiepolo namely in the countries of Northern Europe which
occurred yet during his lifetime and immediately after that, from the second
half of XVIII century onward.
That
‘Tiepolo-mania’ had happened due to the
two main factors: a sweeping popularity of a Grand Tour among the
aristocracy and upper class in Russia and Scandinavian countries, and the sizes
of the outstanding palaces which were erected at the time and which architects
and the officials responsible for their decorations were seeking to decorate
with a huge-size canvases produced with masterly and expressing the symphony of
colours which was the Tiepolo’s trade-mark.
Yet
another important factor was Tiepolo’s established fame in both Wurzburg court
of Prinz Bishop Karl Philip in Germany
and Madrid court of Charles III in Spain. In both places which were notable
spots of that day Europe, Giambattista Tiepolo, with help , in Madrid, of his
son Giandomenico, has created the artworks which were regarded at the time
almost as the eight wonder of the world, and which still be a remarkable art
creations till now. The ceilings of New Residenz , Kaisersaal and a giant
entrance and staircase in Wurzburg, and ceiling of the throne hall in the Royal
Palace in Madrid has made the name of Tiepolo not only largely known far beyond
Venice and Italy, but also has made him increasingly sought-after master among
the Russian and North European aristocracy and upper class which were busy with
building their new giant palaces.
Troya
series by Giandomenico Tiepolo. Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National
Gallery. © Hannu Pakarinen.
As
always, subjective reasons have played a powerful role, as well. The Italian
master architects, like Quarengi, Rossi, and the
others, who were busy with appearing
palaces all over St Petersburg in Russia and who did enjoy much influence there
with regard to their art taste and preferences, loved Tiepolo. They believed
that his masterly in execution, harmonious in colour, and unprecedentedly
dynamic art would make the interiors of the palaces built by them to sing and
to fly, and that is exactly what they were telling to their clients who did
listen carefully and appreciated what they had been told by the supreme
architects of the day.
There
is one thing when an artist is popular, and Italy is the country with the
highest artist competition in between them from the Renaissance until 1930s.
And there is another thing when a popular artist is working for the kings, more
so, in the leading and various courts of Europe - as it was in the case of
Tiepolo. That circumstance has made him a very fashionable artist at the
Russian Imperial court and among the Russian aristocracy, and to some, lesser
extent, among the Swedish Royal circles.
To
the credit of the Russian Imperial and aristocratic society, it should be also
noticed that they were attentive and did follow the opinion of their mostly
German-educated advisers on art, art collections and art acquisitions, and that
they did love and appreciate the art, in particular, Italian art. Quite many of
them did live in Italy or visited the country, and the tradition of love and
appreciation of art in general and Italian art in particular has become the one
of the most strong and lasting traditions among the cultured and educated
Russian public, especially its upper class.
From
this point of view, it is only logical that the organisers of the Tiepolo
exhibition at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum have approached their Russian
colleagues from the Hermitage and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art at the early
stage of the exhibition preparation. The result of that important cooperation
is stunning.
Beginning
In
an interesting unfolding of events, the initiation of this very notable
exhibition goes back to 2016 when Dr Ira Westergard, the chief curator
of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, along with her research assistant Kersti
Tainio, were starting to work on their
research project examining the provenance history of the both Tiepolo’s
works which belonged to the Museum. That story itself is a completed art
detective episode worth a separate narrative.
“ We quickly realised that in a future
exhibition we wanted to focus on Tiepolo in Northern Europe, and therefore we
contacted both Dr Irina Artemieva at the State Hermitage Museum in St
Petersburg and Dr Magnus Olausson at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm and
discussed our ideas with them. They were both enthusiastic and supportive about
the project from the start”.
The
work in the centre of their provenance research, The Greeks Sacking Troy (
1773-1775) by Giandomenico Tiepolo provided a clear focal point towards the
emerging understanding of the future exhibition’s concept. What’s more, the
work, known as modelli in technique, oil sketch on canvas, is the one of the series which belongs to a series
of three works, with the other two belonging to the National Gallery in London.
In planning was the idea to show all of them together, which would be for the
first time in two hundred years.
Giandomenico
Tiepolo. The Triumph of Pulcinella/A carnival Scene. SMK National Gallery of
Denmark, Copenhagen.
Another
significant fact that prompted the future exhibition also happened in 2016 when
the Sinebrychoff Art museum acquired a double
drawing by Giambattista Tiepolo, the Study
of a Female Head, and Study of a Male Head from the one of
art galleries in Milan. This specific drawing is exceptional because it is one
of the few remaining drawings that can be securely connected to the lost
frescoes decorated Palazzo Archinto in Milan. The palace was destroyed due to
the bombing during the Second World War.
International
Dream-Team
It
would not be an exaggeration to mention that the special exhibition in Helsinki
has become a beautiful fruit of very positive multilateral cooperation of
several leading art world institutions. What is also important and valuable is that the exhibition, and particularly the articles in
the accompanying catalogue, present new findings in the field of Tiepolo
research. It really is a miracle that Sinebrychoff, being a small museum with
limited resources, had been able to conduct such a world-level exhibition,
twice so, in the middle of the pandemic. The Sinebrychoff Art Museum team, and
the Tiepolo exhibition’s curator Dr Ira Westergard do deserve our huge
appreciation for their focused and successful efforts.
At
this exhibition, the Sinebrychoff Art Museum has hosted the Tiepolo works from
the State Hermitage ( Russia), the UK National Gallery, London, the Pushkin
Museum of Fine Arts ( Moscow, Russia) , Musei Civivi di Venezia ( Venice,
Italy), Swedish Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, SMK National Gallery of Denmark, Stockholm University Art Collection, Murom
History and Art Museum in Russia, and Finnish National Library.
The
curator of Tiepolo: Venice in the North exhibition Dr Ira Westergard has told
me that ‘it was really the case of fantastic cooperation with a number of the
leading art institutions and the team of extraordinary colleagues”,
including Dr Irina Artemieva,
well-known Russian expert on Italian art and senior art historian from Hermitage, Dr Giuseppe Pavanello, the don of Italian art historians who has
made important research on Tiepolo influence on Antonio Canova, Dr Alberto Craievich, director of the
Ca’Rezzonico Museum Dr Magnus Olausson, the head of collections at the Swedish
Nationalmuseum, Dr Rainer Knapas,
expert on the history of Monrepos special collection
at the Finnish National Library There is no wonder that the Tiepolo exhibition
in Helsinki has become the one of the gems not only in the cultural life of
Finland, but it is very noticeable in the European context of the events in
2020.
Giambattista
Tiepolo. Cupids with Grapes/Allegory of Autumn. The State Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg.
Despite
all the barriers, the team at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum that was
working on the first monographic Tiepolo exhibition in Finland with many of
their good friends in the leading art institutions of Europe, did it, and they
did it not simply well. They did it extraordinarily.
Exposition:
exquisite aesthetics
The
presentation of the Tiepolo exhibition at Sinebrychoff museum is exquisite. Its
design is very modern and deeply aesthetic. It magnifies a viewer’s attention
and it presents the Tiepolo’s masterpieces as precious pearls inside a rich
beautiful jewelry box, if one can imagine the box made of ultramarine walls,
and masterly lighten inside Sinebrychoff Art Museum. Rarely one can see such a
beautifully created exposition among the present-day art exhibitions.
Discoveries
The
exhibition presents 24 oil works of both father and son Tiepolos, more than 30
of their both drawings, and the unique album known as The Catalogo consisting
of over 200 etchings of Giambattista Tiepolo’s and his sons Giandomenico and
Lorenzo.
In the most enriching way, the exhibition in
Helsinki turned out to be filled with serious art discoveries. I categorise
them in my review of this rare exhibition.
Artistic
discovery: Murom painting
On
the cover of the exhibition’s catalogue and its poster, we are enjoying a truly
graceful art work, now attributed to Giambattista ( and previously to his son)
, Virgin
and Child with St John the Baptist (the date is unknown). The elegant, masterly colouristic decision
with ultramarin cloth placed by Tieopolo in the position that commands the
picture in an unusual way, being in the low corner of it, is striking. A small
goldfinch placed by the artist in the hand of a child is immensely human and
vivid at the same time. And the Virgin’s face superbly painted by Tiepolo with
emphatic gentleness and ultimate beauty is powerfully attractive. It is a
beautiful, special, speaking to everyone work of art.
Giambattista
Tiepolo. Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist. Murom;’s History and Art
Museum.Murom, Russia.
Believe
it or not, but this gem of the world’s culture is seen at the exhibition in
Helsinki for the first time ever, in any exhibition outside Russia at all,
since the time of its acquisition which was most likely during the winter of
1858, thus over 160 years ago.
The
unbelievable story of Virgin with a Small Goldfinch is that back in 1858, at
the time of the peak of the Grand Tour popularity, famous Russian count Alexei Uvarov was travelling on the
route with his young wife Praskovya during
their honeymoon trip. It was not just another pair of Russian aristocrats.
The
husband, German-educated count Alexei, who was 18 year elder than his wife, was
the son of the Russian minister of education, and himself the one of the
fathers of entire Russian archaeology studies, the founder of Russian Imperial
Archaeological Society, and also the founder of the famous Historical Museum,
right in the centre of the Red Square in Moscow.
Count
Alexei Uvarov. Murom’s History and Art Museum.
The
wife, young countess, was born countess
Praskovya Scherbatov, was the niece of famous countess Maria Naryshkin, the principal lover and mother of children of
Russian Emperor Alexander I. Praskovya herself was quite likely the prototype
of Kitty Scherbatski in Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace. As it is known from his
diaries, the great Russian writer did
like the young countess Praskovya Scherbatov very much and noted vivacity and
elegance of her mind, which is a rare top-mark to a woman at the time, doubly
so from such demanding observer as the Count Lev Tolstoy.
Konstantin
Makovski. Portrait of the Countess Praskovya Uvarov.
Praskovya
Scherbatov was educated by the top authorities in culture in Russia, her music
teacher was nobody else, but younger brother of famous Artur Rubinstein and
close friend of Piotr Tchaikovsky Nicolay Rubinstein, her art teacher
was famous artist Nikolay Savrasov, and her literature teacher was leading
Russian authority prof.Buslaev.
There
is a beautiful and quite well known sort of vintage roses selected by legendary
French botanist Jacques-Julien Margottin, the person who gave us the Bourbon
roses, Comtesse Ouvaroff. Most likely, it was a gift by Count Alexei to his young
wife, as it is known that after concluding the Grand Tour, the newly married
couple on the way home went to Paris and met there with Margottin. The rose
selected by him for Countess Praskovya is still in use, and it is beautiful.
Rose
The Comtesse Ouvaroff selected by Jacques-Julien Margottin ca 1872.
This
woman has left a very serious trace in the Russian culture, because after the
early death of her husband count Alexei, she did maintain, supported and
inspired the work of the Russian Imperial Archeological Society, and thus the
very development of the field of archaeology in Russia practically single-handedly for many years,
until the Bolshevik revolution, after which he managed to emigrate to former
Yugoslavia where she died in 1924 being 84. She was professor of many Russian
and some foreign universities and was one of the most enlightening figures in
Russia in the second half of the XIX century.
So,
back in the winter of 1858, this very special and finely educated , recently
married couple travels on their honeymoon along the route of the Grand Tour,
and buys that great Tiepolo works most likely in Venice. Upon the return of
Count Alexei Uvarov and his wife Countess Praskovya to Russia, the great work
of Tiepolo went to the wall of the Uvarovs’ family estate Krasnaya Gorka ( Red
Slope) in Karacharovo, near Murom in
Russia. After the Bolshevik revolution,
the priceless art collections of Uvarovs had been nationalised and moved in its
entirety, almost, to the only cultural establishment in nearby Murom town which
has become the Murom’s History and Art Museum and which owns that great Tiepolo
ever since 1918.
Once
great Uvarovs estate had been the Russian state
property for over a century by now, with many decades of them being the
property of the Russian defence ministry. The conditions of that once great
architectural and cultural establishment is utterly pitiful, sadly.
Tiepolo’s
Virgin was on the Murom’s museum walls
ever since the counts Uvarovs art collection was moved there after the
nationalisation back in 1918. Incredibly, it has never been exhibited, neither
inside, or outside Russia. To the huge credit of Dr Irina Artemjeva , it was
she who in the way of collaboration with the Sinebrychoff Art Museum has found
the extraordinary artwork there, and made it possible for the Tiepolo’s
masterpiece to be exhibited in Helsinki, the first time for at least 160 years.
No
wonder that this special work has become the title-work of the exhibition and
that it has been exhibited in Helsinki in an empathic way, similar to the Mona
Lisa in the Louvre.
Tiepolo:
Venice in the North exhibition at Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish National
Gallery, Helsinki. (C)Photo: Hannu Pakarinen.
Historic
discovery: Tiepolo etching album
Another
unprecedented gift to the lovers of arts visiting the Tiepolo exhibition at
Sinebrychoff museum is laying there in a special glass box, being well
lit. Inside the vitrin is the world
treasure which belongs to the Finnish National Library and which had never been
exhibited either. When the leading Italian experts were visiting Helsinki
working on the Tiepolo exhibition and saw and examined that volume at the
Finnish National Library, they literally could not believe their eyes.
The
Catalogo Tiepolo album in the vitrin at the exhibition at Sinebrychoff Art
Museum/Finnish National Gallery. © Photo: Hannu Pakarinen.
The
treasure is known as The Catalogo and it is the first edition of the volume
of all known Tiepolo’s family’s etching which his son Giandomenico has
inherited after his father’s death in Madrid in 1770. When Giambattista died in Madrid in 1770, his
son Giandomenico , upon his return to Venice, Giandomenico decided to publish
this collection of etchings. We know of four different versions of this
collection, four editions of the Catalogo, published between 1774 and 1778. The
one presented at the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki is an example of the first
edition, meaning that the quality of the etchings is superb.
Not
only this edition in Helsinki has been preserved incredibly well and is in an
ideal condition, according to the recent examination by the leading Italian
experts, but as it happens, its existence in Helsinki was unknown even to the
experts outside Finland until very recently. When Alberto Craievich and
Giuseppe Pavanello visited the National Library in Helsinki and were able to
look at the album with their own eyes, they were astonished.
Those
who are aware of the kinds of collections belonging to the Finnish National Library
and the history of how these gems of the civilisation had made its way to this
noble institution would not be that surprised though. It contains many significant family
collections and unique documents.
Lorenzo Tiepolo, after Giambattista Tiepolo. Triumph
of Venus. Reproduction from the album Catalogo di varie Opere(...), owned by
The National Library of Finland, Helsinki.
The
case of the first edition of the Tiepolo Catalogo is the one of them. It
belongs to the Monrepos collection, the famous treasure of Barons Nicolay family.
That family was well known in Russia from the last third of the XVIII century
through the early XX century. The first ‘Russian’ Nicolay ( there were branches of that illustrious family also in France, England
and Germany), Ludwig Heinrich, was poet and professor of literature in his
native Strasbourg. It was there at the Strasbourg University where he was noted
and got acquainted with the creme a la creme of the Russian nobility, due to
the fact that in the second half of the XVIII century, at least the third of
the students at that famous university were children of the Russian high
society. The erudite Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay was soon invited by the famous
Russian aristocrats to teach their children in Russia, and soon he was
recommended as the teacher and private secretary to future Paul I, the son of
Catherine the Great.
Johan
Lampi. Portrait of Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay. Monrepo collection, Vyborg.
He
was very close to future Emperor Paul, and later on was appointed by him as the
President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The Nicolay’s library was
legendary, he was fervent bibliophile who personally knew Voltaire and many
other luminaries of the French Enlightenment, and who was awarded the title of baron rather
late in his life, by Emperor Joseph II, but on the same day with Goethe, and by
the same Imperial edict.
Ludwig
Heinrich Nicolay was among twenty core members of the entourage of Grand Duke
Paul and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Fedorovna during the couple’s travelling
on the Grand Tour in 1871-1872 which was a visible international event. It is
believed that it is during that tour Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay, the refined
connoisseur of books and arts, had acquired The Catalogo, which has become one
of the treasures of his incredible library that was so large that it occupied a
special building in their Monrepos estate near Vyborg .
Four
generations later, in 1916, in the midst of the Great War, the last male in the line of the barons
Nicolay, Paul Ernest Nicolay, the great grandson of the President of the
Russian Academy of Sciences and private secretary of Emperor Paul I, decided
that in order to save their family’s incredible treasure of books and arts, he
would need to relocate it to Helsinki. He did it by donating it to the library
of the Imperial Alexander University, the predecessor of the Finnish National
Library. Paul Ernest was nervous about
possible fire in the big wooden building hosting the famous library, in the
nervous and unstable atmosphere of the Great War.
It
was a truly providential decision of the last representative of the Nicolay
family. Paul Ernest died three years
after, in 1919. His sisters were still living at Monrepos, which was in
Finland, until 1943. Since the Second World War,
the estate, its famous gardens are still in Vyborg, now on the Russian side of
the border.
The
unique Tiepolo Catalogo from barons Nicolay’s library known as Monrepos Special Collection at the Finnish National Library is
exhibited at the exhibition at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum for the first time
since the time when it has been acquired by Ludwig Heinrich Nicolay back in
1781-1782. Just this fact alone among several highlights of the exhibition in
Helsinki earns it a gold medal for public cultural achievements.
No
wonder that the Catalogo has caused so high interest among the Italian art
experts that it has been suggested that it would be worthy of a facsimile
publication.
Conceptual
discovery: The series of the Trojan Horse
The
Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki has become also the premises in which the famous
series by Giandomenico Tiepolo on the Trojan Horse has
become exhibited together, as the artist has created them in the series, for
the first time in over 200 years, since 1817.
What
has happened in Helsinki in 2020 with respect to unifying the parts of
Tiepolo’s son series is the real-life brilliant historical art detective. And
it is so good and interesting that I am going to dedicate a separate essay to
its many twists, leads, moves, places and people involved. It is really worth
it.
As
it has been known to the experts, three modelli, mid-sized oil sketches on
canvas, picturing scenes in Troy, were created by Giandomenico after the death
of his father in 1770. The series has been dated to the early years of the
1770’s. Oil sketches, which Tiepolo family’s workshop was famed for, was a
handy medium to deal art with, due to its size and easy shipping, and it had
been very popular among collectors (for the artist making sketches in oil was a
normal working procedure before painting the finished painting). at the time both inside and outside Venice. Due to
Tiepolo’s popularity in Russia in late XVIII-early XIX century, the Italian
art-dealers tried their luck there, both
with monumental, big paintings, and, in addition to that, there was certainly
also a market for oil sketches as well.
The
one of such dealers who tried, successfully, his luck at the Russian Imperial
Court, Niccolo Leonelli, was so enthusiastic about it that he decided
to focus his activities there. Leonelli, however, had to wait until the crisis
after Napoleon's war on Russia would calm down, thus delaying his appearance
there until 1814 when he arrived in Russia loaded with art from Italy,
including a large number of works by Tiepolo the
son. As it happened, the Russian harsh climate was too much for Italian person
to sustain, and Leonelli fell ill and died two years after his arrival.
A
huge auction of the art belonging to Leonelli was organised in St Petersburg
the year following his death, in 1817.
At least two copies of the auction catalogue still exist. American art historian Burton Fredricksen
published his research on the collection of Tiepolo paintings from that auction
in 2012 and Dr Irina Artemieva has researched the catalogue further.
The
experts have noted that in the catalogue of the auction selling the treasures
that Niccolo Leonelli brought with him to Russia, the three modellis depicting
Troy were listed together.
Troya
series at the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki. Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish
National Gallery. © Hannu Pakarinen.
To
make the long story short, two parts of the series were bought at the auction
in St Petersburg in 1817, most likely, by the well-known English artist George
Dawe who was working at the Russian Imperial Court. His big commission
at the time was 329 portraits of Russian generals who distinguished themselves
during the Napoleon invasion, for the Military Gallery in the Winter Palace.
Eventually,
the two modellis by Giandomenico Tiepolo, The
Building of the Trojan Horse, and The Procession of the Trojan Horse, made their way to the National
Gallery in London where they were present ever since the early 1900s.
The
destiny of the third part of the series is nothing short of a strong thriller.
It was left in Russia, and after the Bolshevik revolution, had become a
commodity, among many other pieces of superb art all over the country, which
the Soviet authorities were dealing in the scheme to bring much-needed funds
into their treasury. The adventures of that particular work by Tiepolo’s son
has brought it eventually to Helsinki where it went for public auction in 1996.
Giandomenico
Tiepolo. The Greeks Sacking Troy. Finnish National Gallery/Sinebrychoff Art
Museum, Helsinki.
The
trick here is that at the moment, it was not traded as Tiepolo. The work of
relatively small size, 41 x 55 cm, was attributed by the Hagelstam auction
house in Helsinki as the work of ‘an unknown Italian master, XVIII century’.
The auction house traded it in the way and with the attribution with which it
has got it from the previous private owner, the family of a former Finnish
diplomat.
Ira
Westergard who was working at the time as an assistant at the Sinebrychoff
Museum, and she remembers the purchase very well. The chief curator at the
museum, who was responsible for the purchase at the auction was Kai Kartio,
nowadays director of the Amos Rex art museum in Helsinki. The museum acquired
this artwork by an “unknown master” for the insignificant sum of 8000 Finnish
marks, equivalent to about 2000 euros.
When
the chief curator at the museum started to work on the authenticity and
authorship of their recently acquired work, he was able to establish very soon,
in a matter of a couple of months, that the museum was extremely lucky to
acquire the authentic work by Giandomenico Tiepolo.
At
this current exhibition featuring both father and son Tiepolos in Finland for
the first time in monographic exhibition, the exhibition’s curator Dr Ira
Westergard was able to materialise the idea and dream that her colleague,
previous chief curator of the Sinebrychoff Museum Kai Kartio have had after the
authorship of their Tiepolo has been affirmed
- to exhibit them all together.
It
took 24 years, but in the Autumn 2020, at the Tiepolo exhibition in Helsinki,
quite substantial break-through in
public art has been achieved, with all
three parts of the Giandomenico Tiepolo's Troya series being exhibited together
for the first time since 1817 where they were seen at the famous Leonelli
auction in St Petersburg. This is an
outstanding museum achievement.
Giandomenico
Tiepolo. The Procession of the Toryan Horse in Troy. The National Gallery,
London.
The
Sinebrychoff museum is very grateful to
the director of the National Gallery in London, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, and
the experts of the museum, for their wholehearted support of this exhibition.
Interestingly,
at the time of the acquisition, Gabriele Finaldi was, in fact, the curator of
the Venetian paintings at the National Gallery, and he was among the first to
congratulate the Sinebrychoff Art Museum on the new acquisition. Already back
then, the idea to show the three Trojan Horses together was expressed. It just
took a few years to realise this idea. The public, privileged to see a wonder
of art in the way it has been planned by Giandomenico Tiepolo, is enjoying it
with great interest.
Rarity
discovery: Recent Sinebryhoff acquisition
At
Tiepolo: Venice in the North exhibition, Sinebrychoff also demonstrates the
Museum’s recent acquisition, a double-sided drawing showing the artist’s
studies of female and male heads. It is believed that the works are related to
the frescoes that Tiepolo was commissioned to produce for Palazzo Archinto in
Milan. Extremely sadly, the gorgeous frescoes of that Palazzo have been
destroyed during the Second World War when Milan was bombed by the American military
aviation in 1944-1945.
Tiepolo’s
works are truly unlucky with this regard, we also know that his splendid work
which has been liked and bought personally by Catherine the Great and which has
been taken by the Empress to her summer retreat in Oranienbaum near St
Petersburg, does not exist any longer.
Giambattista
Tiepolo. Study of a Female Head ( recto). Finnish National Gallery/Sinebrychoff
Art Museum, Helsinki.
Sinebrychoff
Museum has acquired Tiepolo's double-drawing in white and red chalk in 2016
from an art gallery in Milan. The work has been rated so highly in the museum
world that it has been included in the important exhibition at the Frick
Collection in New York, Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of
Palazzo Archinto ( April - July 2019).
At that rare exhibition which purpose was to restore our knowledge about
splendid works by Tiepolo, which were completely and tragically destroyed,
there were only five works loaned by the international art institutions, the
museums of Vienna, the UK, Trieste, and Sinebrychoff. Among those five works,
there were only two surviving drawings by Tiepolo for his frescoes in Palazzo
Archinto, one of them belonging to the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. In Finland, at
their monographic exhibition on Tiepolo, this rarest drawing has been exhibited
for the first time now, after the important exhibition in New York.
*
* * *
The
exhibition in Helsinki has a magic effect: it attracts you to its splendid art
works of father and son Tiepolos in a magnetic way. This exhibition created in
such superb modern and attractive style reminds a good, masterly tale: the more
you hear it, the more you would like to hear. The more you are looking at both
Tiepolos’ works on the exquisite display at the elegant Sinebrychoff Museum in
Helsinki, the more you would like to see it. Such is an unmistaken effect of
Venetian art, with their masters’ magic of light, and dynamic of movement. And
Tiepolo was undoubtedly the one of the most illustrious among the great masters
of Venice, following in his heart the magic of Veronese - as in his turn,
unparalleled Antonio Canova did follow in his heart the unique feeling of a
figure which he has learned from his most favourite artist Tiepolo many decades
later.
In
bringing such worthy, special, full of discoveries exhibition to Helsinki, in
the midst of covid pandemic, being able to coordinate all the logistics with
ten major international art institutions, to publish a great two catalogues,
all this earns our deep gratitude to the Sinebrychoff Art Museum/Finnish
National Gallery team.
It
is really a pity that the exhibition won’t be able to travel. I am sure that it
would be greatly appreciated at any place in the world.
But
as a very good personal and
long-standing gift from this truly superb exhibition, I so very often am
looking at a soothingly beautiful Virgin with a Small Goldfinch about which
neither I, nor many of my very well educated colleagues had any idea about
until a couple of months ago.
When
an exhibition is able to provide a person with something very personal that is
going to be cherished for a long time, it always is a success. Sinebrychoff Art
Museum , with their team’s knowledge, aspirations, expertise and taste did succeed in their first
monographic Tiepolo exhibition in Finland all over 20 000 times corresponding
to the number of people who were able to visit the museum under the covid
restrictions. This is the inspiring story of real success of a great art and
its loving understanding - which matters a lot at any time, twice so at the
difficult times of covid that has distorted our lives in a painful and deprived
way.
November-December
2020
Helsinki
©
Inna Rogatchi
