Sorlini Madonna on display at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice before being restored

From December 18, 2023, to April 7, 2024, the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice will exceptionally host the Madonna in Adoration of the Sleeping Child, a work of Giovanni Bellini ’s early artistic maturity and the property of the Luciano Sorlini Foundation of Calvagese della Riviera, in the province of Brescia, before its restoration. The restoration work will be carried out in Venice and will be entrusted to Giulio Bono and sponsored by Banca Intesa Sanpaolo as part of the two-year Restituzioni restoration program. The work will return to the MarteS in 2026.

“We are honored to be able to host for a period Bellini’s Madonna in Adoration of the Sleeping Child, one of the Venetian painter’s masterpieces of which the Galleries preserve numerous works,” said Gallerie dell’Accademia Director Giulio Manieri Elia.

“The MarteS strives to be a modern museum and a point of reference for Venetian art in Lombardy, however what was once the territory of the Serenissima,” said Stefano Sorlini, president of the Luciano Sorlini Foundation, “I therefore hope that this operation will be followed by a concrete and future collaboration between our museum institutions.”

The exhibition initiative is made possible thanks to agreements between the Brescian Museum and the Venetian Galleries, of which the loan is the first step. The occasion allows the work to be viewed within Room V on the second floor of the Galleries, adjacent to Room IV dedicated to the small-format works of Giovanni Bellini, and in particular to the interpretative evolution of the great leader of the school on the theme of the Madonna and Child.

Original title of the work is Madonna in Adoration of the Sleeping Child. Given that Giovanni Bellini was actually born in Venice, the painting’s stay at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice before the restoration is intended to mark the return of the patriarch of Venetian Renaissance painting and to refer to the bond that Luciano Sorlini had with Venice. The work was later named Madonna Sorlini after Brescian businessman and collector Luciano Sorlini acquired it in 2004. At the same time as the choice was made, the Luciano Sorlini Foundation was established, an entity prepared to guard its extraordinary collection.

At the end of the exhibition, the work will be directly transferred to Giulio Bono’s restoration workshop in Venice, where it will remain until the end of 2024. On the occasion of the restoration, sponsored by Banca Intesa Sanpaolo as part of the Restituzioni project, the work will undergo new art-historical investigations. The scientific curatorship of the studies is entrusted to Antonio Mazzotta, among the leading experts on Bellini painting.

Image: Giovanni Bellini, Madonna in Adoration of the Sleeping Child (c. 1470; tempera on panel; Calvagese della Riviera, Fondazione Luciano Sorlini Museo MarteS).

Sorlini Madonna on display at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice before being restored

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