Elisabetta Povoledo has a article on The New York Times website regarding the Getty’s new massive loan of Bernini sculptures, painting and drawings slated to show this summer.

” ROME – A major loan exhibition of Bernini’s sculptures, paintings and drawings that is also described as the first full viewing of this artist’s portrait busts is headed for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles this summer.

Including major loans from Italian museums, the exhibition underlines the benefits gained by the Getty from its recent handover of several dozen Greek antiquities that Italy asserted had been looted from its ancient archaeological sites.

When talks for the return of the artifacts stalled last year, Italy threatened to impose a cultural embargo against the museum. “There was a moment last summer when we really were on standby,” said Catherine Hess, an associate curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Getty who helped organize the exhibition. ‘No one knew what would happen if the cultural embargo went through.’ Finally, an accord for the restitution of 40 artifacts was brokered in August.

Among the exceptional loans for the Bernini show is a sensual bust of Costanza Bonarelli, the wife of one of Bernini’s assistants. (She became romantically involved with Bernini as well as with his younger brother – a love triangle that became so divisive, archival evidence suggests, that Bernini slashed her face, and Pope Urban VIII was asked to intervene).”

Read the full article here.

Meg Onli
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