Italian Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art
Ancient Pottery, Roman Statues, and Renaissance Paintings
Aug 21, 2009
The North Carolina Museum of Art, in the capital city of Raleigh, houses a well-represented collection of Italian art featuring 34 pieces—ancient pottery, a Roman mosaic and numerous sculptures, and Italian paintings. Combined, the ancient classical art collection and the Italian collection are one of the largest of the museum’s permanent collections. The Museum is transferring its collections to a new building and will reopen in April 2010.
Ancient Pottery, Mosaic, and Polyptych
The earliest piece from Italy is a funerary vase, circa 250 B.C., crafted in Centuripe, Sicily. Centuripe, on the southwest side of Mt. Etna, was a prosperous town known for its colorful pottery. The funerary vases were highly decorated with gilded moldings and leaves, and intricate delicate paintings.
The ancient classical collection includes several statues and busts depicting Roman gods and rulers, and a marble osteotheke, bone box, from the latter part of the second century. The ossuary is heavily adorned with finely detailed statues of the deceased and a chain of cherubs. An unusual piece in the collection is a marble and glass mosaic floor—measuring about eight feet square—from the second century. Greek artists created mosaics using small pieces of terracotta, later adding colored stones and glass. During the Roman Empire, marble was added and the craft spread throughout Italy.
The group of paintings from the late Middle Ages covers a 200-year span starting in the mid-1200s. All eight paintings are tempera and gold leaf on panel; and seven are religious in subject. The highlight of this series is the Peruzzi Altarpiece by Giotto di Bondone and his assistants, circa 1310. The polyptych contains five panels depicting Christ, Mary, and three saints; and is one of the few remaining Giotto altarpieces in the world. In 2008, it traveled to Florence to be part of the “Giotto and His Immense Legacy” exhibit at the Uffizi.
Paintings of the Renaissance
Botticelli’s The Adoration of the Child (circa 1500), Raphael’s St. Jerome Punishing the Heretic Sabinian (1503), and Veronese’s The Baptism of Christ (circa 1500) are just some of the highlights of the paintings in the Renaissance era collection. This group also contains two very large paintings—Lodovico Carracci’s The Assumption of the Virgin (circa 1586) measuring eight feet high by four and one-half feet wide, and Bernardino Lanino’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Donors (1552), almost seven and one-half feet high by five feet wide.
Another outstanding painting in the Renaissance era collection is Madonna and Child in a Landscape (circa 1496) by Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano. The Cima painting was chosen by the United States Postal Service for its 1993 Christmas stamp.
Massive Paintings
Many large paintings dominate the Baroque and Neoclassicism periods of the Museum’s collection. The largest, at nine feet high and a little over six feet wide, is Massimo Stanzione’s The Assumption of the Virgin (circa 1630). While the painting has the same name as the Carracci piece, and the subject is depicted in a similar scene (ascending into heaven surrounded by angels, with the apostles surrounding an empty tomb), Stanzione uses deeper colors that are lightened by a golden hue, and his style is softer, with the facial characteristics, figures, and the folds of the clothing not as angular as in the style of Carracci.
Another work in this collection is the exquisitely elaborate—and large at five and one-half feet high and nine feet wide—The Triumph of Venice (1737) by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni. Other works include Capriccio: The Rialto Bridge and the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore (circa 1750) by Canaletto and two works by Canaletto’s nephew, Bernardo Bellotto. Canaletto painted precise and composite views, and Bellotto was well-known for his painted views of Florence, Dresden, Warsaw, Vienna, and Munich.
Canova's Venus Italica
The newest piece—circa 1815—in the Museum’s Italian collection is Venus Italica, from the workshop of the great neoclassic sculptor Antonio Canova. The original was sculpted by Canova to replace the ancient Medici Venus that was taken to France under Napoleon’s rule. The Medici Venus was returned to the Uffizi in 1815. Canova carved three statues of Venus Italica; one is on display at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence; numerous replicas are displayed throughout the world.
About the NC Museum of Art
The North Carolina Museum of Art was the first museum established in the United States using state funds. In 1947, the NC General Assembly set aside $1 million for the purchase of art. It opened in 1956, and four years later received 75 works of art from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation—the second largest gift presented by the Foundation. The Museum is undergoing an expansion and has closed to facilitate the transfer of its entire collection to a new building, scheduled to open in April 2010.
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