Temporary exhibition of works of art from the collection of the Pushkin Museum

Pushkin Museum im. A. S. Pushkina presents new expositions of halls 17 and 23 dedicated to Italian and French art. These halls will be available for visiting from the beginning of January to March 2023 with an entrance ticket to the museum.

In room 17, the new exposition of which was called “Italy of the 17th – 18th centuries. The Baroque Era”, visitors will be able to see all six compositions by Bernardo Bellotto, nephew of Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), which belong to two famous series - views of Dresden and Pirna and views of Rome. Of the four works with views of Dresden and Pirna, only two were previously exhibited - “View of the Old Market in Dresden” and “View of Pirna with the Sonnenstein Fortress”; this year they were supplemented by "Pirna Market Square" and "View of Pirna from Sonnenstein Fortress". The canvases of the artist from this series, stored in the Pushkin Museum, were made by Bellotto during his work in Dresden (between 1747 and 1755) commissioned by Count Heinrich von Brühl, the first minister at the court of King August III of Poland of Saxony. The compositions "View of the Roman Forum" and "Piazza Rotunda with a view of the Pantheon" were written by Bellotto in the late period of his work, when he worked in Warsaw. They belong to a series of compositions with views of Rome created in 1769-1770 based on engravings by Piranesi for the Polish King Stanisław II August Poniatowski.

There will also be exhibited paintings by Giovanni Paolo Panini, who worked in Rome in the 18th century. He was the first to introduce fashion in Europe for compositions depicting ancient ruins with figures. In the new exposition of hall 17 you can see five works of the artist. Among them are View of the Forum in Rome, the famous painting Benedict XIV Visiting the Trevi Fountain, as well as two compositions depicting the interiors of Roman basilicas: Interior View of the Church of San Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome and Interior View of the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome". Separately, it is worth noting the painting “Ruins with figures. Apostle’s Sermon. The picturesque surface of the painting was covered with a dense layer of darkened varnish, so until recently it was in storage, but last spring it appeared before the viewer in an updated form.

Another surprise for the audience is the painting “Landscape with a Hermit” by the outstanding Genoese artist Alessandro Magnasco, written by him in collaboration with Antonio Francesco Peruzzini. The work entered the Pushkin Museum in 2011, and in 2022 it was included in the permanent exhibition for the first time. In March of this year, the canvas “Carnival” by Giuseppe Bonito, an 18th-century Neapolitan artist who gained fame thanks to his paintings on genre subjects, returned to it, which had not been exhibited for more than 20 years. The picturesque works in the hall are complemented by two marble busts by Giovanni Battista Fogini, depicting representatives of the family of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and executed around 1685 - “Portrait of Vittoria della Rovere” and “Portrait of Leopoldo Medici”.

New exposition in room 23 entitled “France of the 17th – early 19th centuries. Morals and Tastes" includes examples of painting and sculpture, united by the central theme of man, his daily and social life. This theme is reflected in various genres of art: everyday painting, portraiture, still life and landscape, which embodied the spirit of several eras - from the Grand Siècle to the Empire. Thus, the painting “The Entry of Louis XIV into Vincennes”, created in the workshop of Adam Frans van der Meulen, depicts one of the magnificent ceremonies for which the French court was so famous during the time of the “Sun King”. It is no coincidence that the exhibition also includes the work "Dogs and beaten game" by Alexandre Francois Deporte, "artist of the royal hunts", because hunting was one of the favorite hobbies of the king and his court in that era.

An example is Nicola Lancre’s painting "Society at the Edge of the Forest", dedicated to the charms of life and the joys of love. In the second half of the 18th century, family scenes gained particular popularity in art, which was associated with the increased interest of society in the problems of education; an example of such a composition is “Farewell to the Nurse” by Etienne Aubry. The landscapes of Hubert Robert and Claude Joseph Vernet, depicting beautiful views of Italy, both imaginary and real, will tell the audience about the taste for travel. Such works served as original travel souvenirs. The city life of Paris is dedicated to Robert’s painting "The Destruction of the Church", which, not being a topographically accurate image of the city view, rather conveys the atmosphere of that era and the collective image of the townspeople.

For the first time after a complex restoration, the paintings “Fruit” by Jean-Baptiste Oudry and “Portrait of the Leroy family listening to the reading of the Bible” by Nicolas Bernard Lepissier will appear before the public.

In an updated form, after repair, visitors to the museum will also see the exposition of room 29 (“Michelangelo’s Sculpture”) with casts from the famous masterpieces of one of the greatest Italian masters of the Renaissance, commissioned by Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev.