In June 2017 the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts exhibited works by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese that are rarely shown outside Italy.
One year later, a new project between the Russian museum and the Museo Civico di Palazzo Chiericati in Vicenza, north of Venice, brings to Moscow artworks of eminent Venetian masters of 18th Century.
“From Tiepolo to Canaletto and Guardi” exhibits 57 artworks: 23 pieces from Museo Civico di Palazzo Chiericati, 25 from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, and nine from Gallerie d’Italia, Palazzo Leoni Montanari. This is the first time they have ever been shown together, enabling the visitors to see the full range of Venetian rococo painting.
The combination of artworks from three different collections offers a unique opportunity for visitors to discover new masterpieces and, most important, get a more complete picture of the diversity of 18th-century Venetian art.
Although the Pushkin Museum houses a rich selection of Italian painting, in which the school of Venice is well represented, Russian art lovers can see works by two remarkable Venetian artists of the period, Giambattista Piazzetta and Pietro Longhi, who are rarely found in Russian collections. Meanwhile, works by Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, and other masters are quite rare in Vicenza’s collections.
“The collections of the two museums are complementary. By putting them together, we managed to connect perfectly a century that was the last golden age for Italy’s leading artistic role in Europe,” Giovanni Villa told The Moscow Times. The director emeritus of Vicenza’s Civic Museums and curator from the Italian side described how the art project encapsulated a century and how the three artists — Tiepolo, Canaletto and Guardi — unified European culture with their style.