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october 24, 2022 - Galleria Borghese

Painting on stone in Rome in the Cinquecento and Seicento

Sebastiano del Piombo, perhaps even before the Sack of Rome in 1527, developed thetechnique ofoil painting on stone, aware that he was reviving an ancient practicementioned by Pliny. The terrible devastation caused by the sacking of the city decreedthe success of his invention: painter and patrons were under the illusion that stone, asopposed to fragile canvases and panels, would confer immortality to painting. To theVenetian painter therefore, and to this terrible juncture, can be traced the invention ofstone painting, to which theGalleria Borgheseis dedicating the exhibitionTime-less Wonder.Painting on Stone in Rome in the Cinquecento and Seicentofrom 25October 2022 to 29 January 2023, curated by #francescacappelletti and #patriziacavazzini.

The exhibition, designed to draw the public’s attention to this production of singular objects, is part of aresearch projectthat began in 2021 with an in-depth study of thethemes of Nature and Landscape within the Gallery’s collection. It is the collection itself, assembled by Scipione Borghese in the first three decades ofthe 17th century, that presents examples of stone paintings of considerable interest, while the context, the diversity of materials used in the works and their harmony with historical collections of plants, animals and other natural curiosities that no longer exist, helps to define the sense of wonder and amazement that has characterised it forcenturies.

Withover 60 works from Italian and international museums and important private collections, Timeless Wonder. Painting on Stone in Rome in the Cinquecento and Seicento recounts not only the ambition for eternity of works of art, but also thec ritical debate of an era sensitive to the competition between painting and sculpture, as well as primordial materials, extracted from mines, their adventurous journey to the artists’ workshops and their place in collections, which became new venuesfor these debates, in palaces and villas increasingly rich in furnishings, magnets for the production of luxury goods.

The itinerary, divided intoeight sections, begins with PAINTING ON STONE ANDITS CREATOR, a necessary16th century premise that demonstrates how the use of metals and marbles as a support for painting, made it not only capable of conquering time, like sculpture, but also to make the memory of a figure long-lasting: thisis revealed by works such as the Portrait of Filippo Strozzi(c. 1550) by Francesco Salviati, on African marble; the portrait of Cosimo de Medici (c. 1560) attributed to Bronzino, on red porphyry; or the Portrait of Pope Clement VII with a Beard (c. 1531) by Sebastiano del Piombo.

Further information in the press release to download