After more than a century, Jacopo Bassano's masterpiece returns to Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia

The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice welcomes the public again from Tuesday, May 26, in compliance with all the security measures provided by the Covid-19 health emergency. Diversely from its usual schedule, the museum venue will be closed on Mondays, while it will be open to visitors Tuesday through Sunday from 8:15 a.m. to 7:45 p.m.

“The decision to reopen the Galleries, despite the difficulties we are experiencing, and thus to welcome visitors under conditions of total safety, was made possible thanks to the effort of all the museum’s workers and collaborators,” says Director Giulio Manieri Elia. “We felt it was only right that our institution should not miss this appointment and give a message of confidence about the future of Venice. A city that has in art and culture its vocation and its destiny, an unbreakable bond that starts from the local community that recognizes itself in its heritage, and reaches the rest of the world.”

The Galleries hold the most important collection of Venetian painting in the world, and on the occasion of their reopening, they will not only welcome visitors: after more than a century, the extraordinary Saint Anne Enthroned with the Virgin Child and Saints Jerome and Francis, known as the Saint Anne Altarpiece, painted by Jacopo Bassano in 1541, will return to the Venetian museum venue.

The painting was executed for the Riformati of Asolo and in 1812 entered the collections of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, but at the end of the 19th century it was given on deposit to the parish church of Sossano, and since 1956 it has been kept at the Museo Civico in Bassano del Grappa. Now Jacopo Bassano’s masterpiece is coming home, following the rearrangement of the section dedicated to 16th-century Venetian painting, in the rooms currently undergoing restoration and plant upgrading (now at an advanced stage).

The St. Anne Altarpiece will be temporarily displayed in Room XXIII, that is, in the former church of S. Maria della Carità, and after maintenance work, it will be moved to a room entirely dedicated to the art of Jacopo Bassano, the opening of which is scheduled for next fall along with other exhibition spaces in the Palladian wing. The work is important because it documents the painter’s early phase, in which the influence of Pordenone’s painting can be seen.

The transfer of the altarpiece, which arrived in Venice in March, was made possible thanks to the Galleries’ curator of 16th-century painting, Roberta Battaglia, and Chiara Casarin of the Bassano del Grappa Museum and a member of the Accademia Galleries’ scientific committee.

Image: Jacopo Bassano, Saint Anne Enthroned with the Virgin Child and Saints Jerome and Francis (1541, oil on canvas, 147 x 103 cm) courtesy of the Bassano del Grappa Civic Museums.

After more than a century, Jacopo Bassano's masterpiece returns to Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia

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