Homage to Lorenzo Lotto

Homage to Lorenzo Lotto.
The Hermitage Paintings at the Gallerie dell’Accademia

Curated by Roberta Battaglia and Matteo Ceriana
Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia
24 November 2011–26 February 2012

Against the backdrop of the 2011 cultural exchanges between Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia and Saint Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum, the two great museum institutions decided to organise a “niche” exhibition in Venice focusing on the works of Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto. The initiative sets out to complement the Scuderie del Quirinale grand exhibition curated by Giovanni C. F. Villa in Rome.

The Russian museum has granted the Gallerie dell’Accademia the loan of Portrait of a Husband and Wife and Our Lady of Grace, two paintings that have never before been exhibited in Italy. These fundamental artworks called for a broader outlook on the biography and artistic development of a painter who is nowadays unanimously recognised as one of the highest interpreters of the sixteenth century.

For this occasion, the I.R.E. Archive has retrieved a very precious piece of documentation: Lotto’s second autograph will of 1546. The document – discovered by archivist historian Giuseppe Ellero and transcribed for the first time by Agata Brusegan – is included in the exhibition catalogue.