Vase in the shape of a salamander with bracket handle decorated with small birds in relief

Globular vase decorated with wave patterns in relief and two ornithomorphic plastic figurines at the base of the bracket loop

Chimù black bicameral vase with distinct foot and flat bottom. The chambers depict two parrots with large concentric incised eyes, joined by the ventral connection and stirrup-like handle. A scalar relief element is molded on the joint between the handle and neck.

Cuy-shaped vase with bracket loop (guinea pig used for feeding)

 

This sculpture, also called "Madonna Carrega", comes from Palazzo Tobia Pallavicino in via Garibaldi. It is one of the masterpieces produced in Genoa by the great Marseillaise sculptor, Pierre Puget who while in the city, coming from Rome, enjoyed one of the most productive seasons of his life, from 1661 to 1668, and participated in the introduction of the Baroque to the Ligurian capital. This work (about 1681) of the highest emotional impact, is influenced by the work of Michelangelo (e.g. the Madonna of Bruges) and also Bernini. The artist worked for a long time in Rome. It is interesting to note that the child appears as a "normal" child, plump and well looked after and happy, he seeks the attention of his mother, while Maria looks into the distance, certainly foreshadowing her dramatic future.

 

The brushwork of Fiasella (the painter was known as "il Sarzana", the name of his city of origin) is characterized by a careful and confident management of colours, in the Caravaggesque style, attenuated by a serenity in the style of Orazio Gentileschi. This painting, together with two others also exhibited in the Museum (The baptism of Christ and The wedding of Mary) comes from the Church of SS. Annunziata del Vastato. All three are immersed in an intimate and soulful atmosphere: typical of the Counter-Reformation period, made to touch the soul of the people.

 

A humanist and politician, Pontano was perhaps the greatest Italian poet in Latin. This bronze bust was commissioned by Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Calabria and later King of Naples under the name Alfonso III, to celebrate this personage who had been his tutor. Adriano Fiorentino was a bronze foundryman and medallist and carried out an intense activity between Italy and Germany, producing among others two important busts of public figures: Ferdinand I, in Naples, and Frederick the Wise, in Dresden. Bronze bust of Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, poet and tutor.

 

It is certainly a small fresco, but embodied within its great dynamism, colour and compositional wisdom, it represents an excellent example of the art of Luca Cambiaso (as does, the fresco displayed next to it, also coming from the same Villa Grimaldi Sauli al Bisagno, depicting Scipione freeing Massinissa's nephew).
It was part of the decoration of one of the rooms of the building, in a corner of the vault. An example whose relatively recent restoration (2010) has enriched, it shows the refined fresco techniques used by Cambiaso in his works, referring in the plasticity of the forms to a complex maturity, still mixed with 'Roman' colour and spatial suggestions, but in a decisive evolution towards a style of his own: note how the vivid, white light cuts the scene defining the struggling bodies with a geometricizing substantiality dear to the still young artist.

Loans

Genoa, Galata Museo del Mare
from 27/06/2016 to 10/01/2016
for the exhibition "Mare Monstrum. The imagery of the sea between wonder and fear"

 

This monumental fresco is by this very talented Milanese artist who was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, it was completed around 1497. Braccesco’s is one of the first reflections on Leonardo's work, with some differences; Leonardo painted tapestries on the side walls, while Braccesco represented windows to justify the natural light that entered the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria della Pace, in which the work was located. Also note the basin of the Holy Grail in front of Jesus, which is the same as that seen in St. Lawrence's Treasure Museum in Genoa. The artist inserts a precise reference to the famous relic present in the city, the first example of a motif later taken up in Genoese painting of later centuries. The fresco was severely damaged due to its rapid removal, before the church was destroyed (early 1900s).

 

Tradition has it that the polyptych was made by Ludovico Brea for Biagio De' Gradi in 1481, the year of his will (Soprani 1674, p. 13; Ratti-Soprani 1768, v. L, p. 22; Alizeri 1873, v. LI, pp. 291-295). While accepting the attribution, scholars consider the crucifixion to be about a decade later. According to the will, Biagio De' Gradi's heirs were to complete and decorate the chapel (De Floriani 1990, p. 39; De Floriani 1991, p. 410; Schwok 2005, pp. 150-151). This hypothesis is also confirmed from a stylistic-formal point of view with regard to the breadth of the landscape, the attention paid to the play of light and shadow and the balance of the composition given by the space-figure relationship (De Floriani 1991, p. 410). The two panels depicting, respectively, St. Nicholas of Tolentino and St. Vincent Ferrer with donor (Prague, Narodni Galerie; cf. Pujmanova 1987, pp. 84-87; Pujmanova 197, p. 20; De Floriani 1991, p. 410; Tagliaferro 1991, p. 54) and the panel with St. Peter (card 147), are considered to belong to the crucifixion polyptych. In the foreground Jesus, wearing a white loincloth, a crown of thorns on his head and a wound on his bleeding side, is crucified to a smooth cross, on the top of which a scroll reads: “Jesus Nazarene King of the Jews” in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. On either side of the cross two little angels are suspended in flight. At the foot of the cross, Mary Magdalene, with long blond hair flowing down her shoulders, wears a gold brocade dress with a red cloak edged with ermine. On the right, St. John the Evangelist, with folded hands, dressed in blue and wearing a purple cloak, looks towards Jesus. On the opposite side, the Madonna is depicted in a red dress and a blue cloak, edged in gold, covering her head wrapped in a white veil. In the background, a hilly landscape with a river and fortified villages is painted.