In line with the impressive work of redevelopment and critical reorganization of the spaces and installations led by its Director Simone Verde, the Monumental Complex of the Pilotta in Parma today inaugurates the new exhibition itinerary of the West Wing of the National Gallery: over 2,000 square meters reorganized and redesigned to ensure better enjoyment of the works housed there and of the relationships between them, starting with an unprecedented itinerary dedicated to Flemish painting from 1400 to 1600.
More than 20 works in this new section, and as many frames, have been the subject of a careful restoration campaign aimed at restoring the full legibility and high pictorial quality of authentic masterpieces that have long been kept in storage and are now exhibited to the general public for the first time and compared with the Mannerist art of the duchy.
Restoring full dignity and due prominence to Flemish art , which plays a central role in the history of art in Parma and court collecting, was one of the key objectives of the reorganization of the first floor of the North-West Wing of the Gallery. The paintings were mostly made by artists who had relations with the Farnese court or were appreciated by the noble families of the area, such as that of the counts Sanvitale and Dalla Rosa-Prati .
“ Flemish art was recalled to Parma to increase the prestige of the Court – says Director Simone Verde – thus contributing to underlining the cosmopolitan role of the Duchy within modern Europe. These works, painted to be seen up close, spread a new taste in interior decoration, made of preciousness in which refined images and almost chiselled in the material were arranged on the walls until they filled them. In all the themes – continues Verde – a way of observing the reality of a culture is highlighted that is clearly different from the Italian one and emerged forcefully thanks to the Spanish hegemony in Europe which had a decisive impact on the production of the Peninsula and accelerated the birth of Mannerism ”.
Among the works in this large section, a place of absolute prominence is occupied by the portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam , a masterpiece by Hans Holbein – from the Sanvitale collection – with a physiognomy and clothing that constitute the status symbol of the humanist magister .
Thanks to the restoration work – carried out by Open Care – Servizi per l’Arte – the painting has regained its original chromatic splendor as well as the high definition of the details of the face and figure of the humanist who chose Holbein as his official portraitist.
Also from the Sanvitale collection comes an important group of works made with different pictorial techniques but united by the Flemish miniaturist refinement of the details and the shaded landscapes; among these are the paintings on copper by Paul Brill and Sebastiaen Vrancx, rich in minutiae and details that seduce the eye and make nature shine. And also the Temptations of Saint Anthony , a splendid oil on panel attributed to the circle of Jan Wellens de Cock in which the amazing inventions and devilries depicted seem inspired by the central panel of the triptych of the Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosh.
In addition to the interesting intervention on the lively Market Scene inspired by Brueghel, it is also worth mentioning the restoration of the Naval Battle by Aert Anthonisz , a small-sized work which illustrates a furious battle whose vessels are depicted with implacable accuracy, as are the crowds of soldiers on board, and that of the Interior of the Church of St. James in Antwerp by Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger which has regained, in addition to the harmoniously played chromatic tones of yellow and pale pink, the perspective effects and careful description of details which are typical of the Dutch painter.
Thanks to the intervention of the Higher Institute for Conservation and Restoration, two precious panels by Jan Provost , one of the most significant representatives of the Bruges School, depicting Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist , are being returned to the public for the first time; they are most likely the upper panels of a Triptych, of which there is no information on the central part, datable within the first decade of the sixteenth century.
The six canvases with scenes from Genesis by Jan Soens , one of the most well-known and significant artistic personalities at the Farnese court, come from the Dalla Rosa Prati collection . The description of a lush nature is conceived according to the characteristics of Flemish landscape painting.
Among the Flemish paintings of religious subjects that arrived in the Gallery from the same collection, two paintings by the same author stand out: the beautiful Saint Cecilia by Denys Calvaert , a painter originally from Antwerp who arrived in Italy in 1562 and settled in Bologna, and the Deposition , which entered the Gallery in 1851 with the purchase of the Dalla Rosa-Prati collection promoted by the Duchess Maria Luigia.
The room also includes the portrait of the governor of Flanders Alessandro Farnese executed in 1557 by Anthonis Mor .
The exhibition continues on the second floor in the section “Art in Parma 1500-1600” which bears witness to the presence of further personalities and new influences, particularly Flemish, also due to the circulation of prints and engravings from the north, in addition to the early sixteenth-century Parma painting in which Correggio and Parmigianino stand out. Among these, Giorgio Gandini del Grano , a still little-known author with a highly original stylistic language, Orazio Samacchini and Giovan Battista Trotti, stand out in particular.
A tribute to the art of Parmigianino, but charged with new accents, can also be seen in the fresco fragments by Jacopo Zanguidi, known as Bertoja, coming from the Palazzo del Giardino, intended by Ottavio to host the leisure and entertainment of the court, the construction of which had begun in 1561. In the decoration of the main floor, fables and love stories taken from the chivalric poems of Boiardo and Ariosto follow one another on the walls in a continuous narrative, with persuasive characters, rich in fantastic inventions and formal elegance typical of Parmigianino, which are intertwined with the experiences derived from the magical realism of Germanic and Flemish painting by painters from the north, whose significant presence in the city was also due to the court’s relations with Flanders and in particular with Margaret of Austria, who became governor of the Netherlands in 1559.
The reopening of the North West Wing of the National Gallery , in its new guise starting from the Flemish section, together with the organization of the large exhibition “I FARNESE. Architecture, Art, Power” , underway at the Complex until July 31, constitute a further important result of a long and significant process of rethinking the historical collections towards the New Pilotta , by the Director Simone Verde and based on a civil mission that is essential today: to make citizens more aware of their past and their identity.