In 2022 in Genoa a major exhibition dedicated to Rubens and his connection with the city

In 2022, Palazzo Ducale in Genoa will dedicate a major exhibition to Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen, 1577 - Antwerp, 1640) and his connection with the city. Curated by Nils Büttner and Anna Orlando and produced by the City of Genoa with the Fondazione Palazzo Ducale per la Cultura and Electa, the exhibition titled Rubens and the Palaces of Genoa, which will be on view from October 6, 2022 to January 22, 2023, was created on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the publication in Antwerp in 1622 of the Baroque painter’s celebrated volume entitled Palaces of Genoa.

The painter stayed in Genoa on several occasions between 1600 and 1607, visiting it also in the retinue of the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo I Gonzaga, with whom he held the position of court painter. He thus had the opportunity to entertain direct and in some cases very close relations with the richest and most influential aristocrats of the city’s oligarchy.

More than 150 works, including some 20 paintings by Rubens from European and Italian museums and collections, will be on display in the exhibition, adding to those in Genoa. Starting from this Rubensian nucleus, paintings by the artists Rubens saw and studied, such as Tintoretto and Luca Cambiaso, or whom he met in Italy and particularly in Genoa during his stay (Frans Pourbus the Younger, Sofonisba Anguissola and Bernardo Castello), or with whom he collaborated (Jan Wildens and Frans Snyders) will also be on view.

Through drawings, engravings, tapestries, furniture, ancient volumes, even clothing, women’s accessories and jewelry, the grandeur of the artistic capital visited by one of the greatest artists of all time will be celebrated. The story of the Republic of Genoa at the height ofits power when, in the early seventeenth century, it experienced a period of extraordinary economic as well as cultural and artistic vibrancy will then be told.

Among the works that will return to Genoa is the Ritratto di Dama (Portrait of a Lady ) from the Faringdon Collection Trust, exceptionally detached from the walls of the Buscot Park mansion in Oxfordshire, England: a hitherto unnamed lady who, thanks to studies in preparation for the exhibition, is now recognizable as the Genoese Violante Maria Spinola Serra. Also, the recently rediscovered European private collection Saint Sebastian, formerly part of the collection of Carlo Filippo Antonio Spinola Marquis de Los Balbases. Also on display for the first time in Italy will be the youthful Self-Portrait from around 1604, with a Rubens roughly 27 years old, which a private collector offered as a long-term loan to the Rubenshuis in Antwerp

Underlying the exhibition project is a long process of scientific study and insight on the part of the curators, as well as the support of a prestigious international honorary scientific committee composed of the leading experts in the field. In addition to them, a substantial number of scholars from different countries and institutions participate with specific contributions in the catalog, published by Electa.

The exhibition enjoys the collaboration of the City of Antwerp and the Antwerp Centrum Rubenianum, the Honorary Consulate of Belgium in Genoa, and the Genoa Chamber of Commerce. The City is working on activating other institutional partnerships with other Italian and European bodies and cities.

“Palazzo Ducale believes not so much in ’big exhibitions’ as in ’big exhibitions,’” stressed Fondazione per la Cultura President Luca Bizzarri, “that are, that is, not limited to a single place or a single discipline, but expand toward the city, the region, the individual visitor. It is therefore a source of great satisfaction to announce that 2022 will be for Palazzo Ducale a year of ’major exhibitions’ founded on the network between scholars, institutions, technicians, administrations and private individuals, under the banner of content and quality. The Rubens exhibition is an exemplary case in point: not only does it offer an extraordinarily complete and articulated itinerary, but it also opens up multiple windows of narrative and accessibility, which has always been the strong point of Palazzo Ducale; which will not fail to offer a program of events - educational workshops, lectures, conferences, book presentations - that we hope will make the cultural landscape of our city particularly alive.”

“We want to tell a love story,” Anna Orlando concludes, “that of Rubens and the Duke of Mantua for a city that at the beginning of the seventeenth century is wonderful and surprising, a true capital of Europe from the point of view not only of finance and commerce, but also of art. We know that the Duke fell in love with the women of Genoa, considered to be of rare beauty and elegance, and with the amenities of beaches, villas and gardens overlooking the sea. The painter was so impressed by the masterpieces of churches and private mansions and palaces that he proposed them as a new housing model for other Old World countries. That is why we are not only presenting an exhibition, but revealing to visitors some of the wonders preserved for centuries in our city.”

Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Violante Maria Spinola Serra, detail ©The Faringdon Collection Trust, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire

In 2022 in Genoa a major exhibition dedicated to Rubens and his connection with the city

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