ENGLISH REAL ENIGMAS Portraits and still lifes of the Poletti Collection and Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini 1 REAL ENIGMAS GEO POLETTI AND THE REASONS Portraits and still lifes of the Poletti Collection FOR THE EXHIBITION and Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini Curated by Paola Nicita Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica – Galleria Corsini 24 October 2019 – 2 February 2020 One of the most renowned 18th-century galleries, owned by Florentine Pope Clement XII and his cultured nephew Cardinal Neri Maria, designed and built by the architect Ferdinando Fuga to house their vast collection of paintings, will be hosting some pieces from the collection of Geo Poletti, educated in Milan, London and Lugano starting in the 1950s. The aim is not to compare the two collections, which are very different in terms of their size, time, places, tastes and styles. Yet there are certainly some surprising similarities. The intention is to reflect on the theme of collecting, both as a practice and as a cultural category, by dis- 9 playing an assortment of pieces belonging to one of the most original contemporary collectors. The exhi- bition also presents some unresolved problems, without wishing to offer any new attributions at all costs, allowing them to remain in anonymity, where names and dates are unknown. This exhibition continues the 8 7 6 5 4 series of shows that Galleria Corsini in Rome has dedicated to collecting, a theme that is fundamental to the identity of Gallerie Nazionali in Rome. For the first time in Rome, the most significant still lifes from the Poletti collection will be on display along with another four paintings from his collection. They will be shown alongside some pieces from Gallerie 3 Nazionali that are not usually on public display and a piece from the National Museum in Warsaw in order to explore the sometimes unexpected relationships and exchange between works of art and artists. What these paintings share is that they are expressions of the “Painting of Reality” genre and Caravaggesque naturalism, in all its known and in some ways still enigmatic forms. 2 This exhibition was produced in close collaboration with the Poletti family, whom we thank, and follows, although with important variations, the exhibition held last March at the Palazzo Reale in Milan dedicated to still life paintings in the Geo Poletti collection. 1. ANTECHAMBER \ GEO POLETTI AND THE REASONS FOR THE EXHIBITION 2. FIRST GALLERY 3 CARDINAL’S GALLERY \ THE PEASANT PHILOSOPHER Ruggero Poletti, better known as Geo (Milan 1926–Lenno, Como 2012), was an art historian and connois- 1 4. FIREPLACE CHAMBER seur, a painter and collector who was famous for his keen eye and unerring judgement. He began assem- 5. ALCOVE 6.GREEN CABINET bling his collection in the fifties, when Italian museums were undergoing radical renewal and works of art, 7. GREEN CHAMBER \ THE REALITY OF THE BODY removed from their context and glorified for their formal uniqueness, freed of any external interference, 8. BLUE ROOM \ TIMELESS NATURE were appreciated and arranged according to strictly qualitative value judgements meant to inspire uncon- 9. BLUE CABINET \ THE MYSTERY OF THE FISHMONGER ditioned aesthetic experiences. The exhibition takes place in different rooms of Galleria Corsini. It begins in the Cardinal Gallery with Democritus by Ribera and continues into the Green Room with Magdalene, Bacchus and the Faun and Faun with Grapes and Flute. It concludes in the last two rooms hosting the Still Lifes from the Geo Poletti collection and three versions of the Fishmongers from the Poletti collection, the collections of Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini and the National Museum in Warsaw 2 3 In the early thirties Geo lived with his father and brother in San Paolo, Brazil. When he returned to Milan, he continued his studies, focussing on art. His mother, a friend of Arturo Toscanini and Carlo Maria Giulini, introduced him to opera and music, a passion that accompanied him throughout his entire lifetime. During the war he and his family moved to their villa in Bellagio on Lake Como, where he met Mario Sironi, who urged him to paint. In addition to Sironi, Umberto Boccioni, Giorgio De Chirico and Arturo Martini, Poletti appreciated Francis Bacon, an artist who clearly influenced his painting. In 1962 a solo exhibition was held of his work at Galleria Il Milione in Milan, curated by Giovanni Testori. In another solo show in 1967, again at Il Milione, in the preface of the catalogue, art historian Francesco Arcangeli described him as “an enthu- siastic connoisseur of a great deal of art from the past yet a modern man.” During that time, he gave one of his paintings to art critic Roberto Longhi, which is still on display in the Longhi Foundation’s collection of paintings in Florence. In the meantime, Poletti’s passion was growing for the study and collecting of ancient painting, as by that time he was only painting for himself and had no intention of showing his pieces, becoming a passionate collector. Meeting Longhi marked a crucial turning point in his interest in works of art. The two formed a very close friendship and shared the same approach to study, mainly exploring the art of Caravaggio, the Caravaggisti, the Caravaggesque painters and in general all 17th-century Italian and Spanish paint- ing, mainly Ribera and Velázquez. He was particularly passionate and knowledgeable about 17th- and 18th-century still lifes. His home in via Cernaia in Milan was frequented by friends, art historians, antique dealers and scholars, including Giovanni Testori, Mina Gregori, Giuliano Briganti and Federico Zeri. 4 5 THE PEASANT PHILOSOPHER “…a peasant who is laughing and holding a piece of paper with writing on it with several books on a table.” This is the entry for this painting in the 1638 inventory of the Roman collection belonging to Vincenzo Gius- tiniani, said to be a piece by Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652). In Geo Poletti’s collection, since the sixties the painting had initially been interpreted as being the Smiling Geographer. However, it is actually Democritus, the mid-5th-century-A.D. Greek philosopher who founded the mechanistic-determinist doctrine of nature, whereby everything occurs out of necessity. He is usually portrayed smiling ironically, unlike his contem- porary Heraclitus, typically portrayed as crying and melancholy. Heraclitus and Democritus: the two faces of philosophy. The painting, marked by its strong naturalism, was painted by the young Valencian painter during his transition from Rome to Naples between 1615 and 1618. The face, hands, clothes and the tools of the philosopher’s trade – books, pens and the Armillary sphere, a symbol of the cosmos – are superb still life objects, all executed with the minute accuracy of the Flemish painters yet with the realistic, dramatic use of light and shadow that clearly demonstrate the painter’s famili- arity with Caravaggesque culture. Though it is the intensity of the philosopher’s expression that truly makes this painting a portrait. The man in Giustiniani’s inventory is an ordinary peasant: extremely human and vital, naturally portrayed in his individuality and turned protagonist. He is not dressed up as a philosopher; he truly is one. Ribera tells us that the truly wise man is a peasant laughing at human fragility and at those who think they have managed to glimpse the meaning behind things. Pieces like this, found in various Spanish collections, are what significantly influenced the young Velázquez in Seville. JUSEPE DE RIBERA (Xàtiva 1591 – Napoli 1652) Democritus 1615-1618 ca., oil on canvas, 99 × 75 cm, Poletti Collection 6 7 THE REALITY OF THE BODY The exhibition continues into the Green Room, named after the colour of its 16th-century textile wall cov- erings. Placed between the windows in the room on a magnificent Baroque console, taking the place of St. John the Baptist by Caravaggio (temporarily arranged on the opposite wall), is the shamelessly nude Penitent Magdalene from the Poletti collection. We have called its anonymous author the “Painter of the Briganti Magdalene” because the painting be- longed to merchant and art historian Aldo Briganti of Florence, father of well-known art historian Giuliano Briganti. We know that the piece was moved from Florence to Rome, where in 1966 it caught the eye of Giovanni Testori, who in the auction house catalogue referred to it pointing out its traditional attribution to Romagna painter Guido Cagnacci (1601–1663), yet ascribing it to a French-trained artist. In 1969 it became part of the Paul Getty Museum collection and was later auctioned in New York in 1992 and purchased by Geo Poletti. At the Getty Museum the piece was registered under the name of the Spanish Antonio Puga (Ourense 1602–Madrid 1648) due to the presence on the back of the letters “PVGA”, no longer visible be- cause at some point the canvas was newly lined. Although not all the critics agree because until that time this unusually talented Spanish painter and follower of Velázquez had mainly only been attributed with genre paintings and Bambocciate (paintings of scenes from the everyday life of the lower classes in and around Rome). Vittorio Sgarbi recently suggested that the author may have been Giovanni Serodine, one of the most original painters within the circle of early-17th-century Caravaggesque painters who died in 1630 in Rome. Although there is nothing to indicate where it comes from, we still believe it most likely originates from a Spanish stylistic context, similar to that of the great Seville painter. Therefore, one of the aims of the exhibi- tion is to offer the opportunity to analyse critically and study this hypothesis. The difficulty of identifying its author, its mysterious origin and, above all, its original yet disconcerting ico- nography and composition all undoubtedly make this piece an enigma.