Tribute to the arts
A decade of acquisitions and restorations
Tribute to the arts. A decade of acquisitions and restorations is the exhibition that concludes the rich calendar of events and celebrations organized for the Buonconsiglio Castle museum's Centennial.
The exhibition offers the chance to see for the first time dozens of unseen artifacts that had never been studied before. The itinerary is divided into seven rooms with works covering a time span from the Iron Age to the early 19th century.
On display are paintings on panel and canvas, sculptures in wood, plaster and stone, as well as prints and drawings, applied arts, precious and rare furnishings, archaeological finds and more.
Among the most curious and never-before exhibited objects are an elegant sedan chair and a sleigh, both made in Venice in the 18th century that call to mind distant eras when travelling depended on the strength of the man employed as a carrier, and that of the horses that pulled the vehicles.
The fascination with ancient Egypt, which became all the rage after the Napoleonic campaign, is also revived in the exhibition, evoked by a number of recently restored small bronze statuettes representing deities.
There is also a selection of bronzes as well as a number of sculptures depicting the body of the dead Christ used in the past to promote the devotion of the believers, and enhance his physical beauty through the technical skill of the artists: on display is the Holy Family alabaster bas-relief made by sculptor Cornelis van der Beck, and the striking Oration in the Garden painted by Martin Knoller.
Part of a rich collection dating back to the Turco Menz nobles are a substantial collection of prints and engravings on paper media attesting to European production from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries and some precious and rare artistic artifacts.
Among the hundreds of engravings, woodcuts, invention prints and reproduction prints recovered to legibility, a selection of six specimens is presented as an example of the richness and variety of content of the collection; small-format paintings of profane and sacred subjects and a unique plaster artifact representing a putto are also presented.
