Considered misplaced to historical past for hundreds of years, a newly attributed Andrea Mantegna portray depicting Jesus Christ’s descent from the cross has made its means from a church in Pompeii to the Vatican Museums for a three-month exhibition beginning final Thursday, March 20. Present in poor situation, the portray was attributed to the Venetian Renaissance artist through the Vatican Museums’s intense and meticulous restoration.
Previous to being recognized, the final historic document related to the portray dates again to the sixteenth century, when such a piece was mentioned to have been on the Basilica of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples. With none data of its switch, the art work was found on the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary in Pompeii, the place it was displayed in obscurity for hundreds of years. The work is undated, however could have been commissioned between 1496 and 1501.
The Sanctuary posted a picture of the work on-line in a digitized stock of ecclesiastical cultural heritage in Italy, sparking the eye of Stefano De Mieri, a professor and researcher on the Suor Orsola Benincasa College in Naples, who intuited that the portray was an authentic Mantegna work in 2020. After visiting the work onsite in 2021, De Mieri noticed that it had been closely altered by a number of restorations in its lifetime.
Non-invasive diagnostic imagery was used to establish signature traits of Andrea Mantegna’s fashion within the portray introduced in from Pompeii.
The “Deposition of Christ” was subsequently delivered to Rome in 2022 for additional investigation and conservation, the place non-invasive diagnostic imagery, analysis, and elimination of the heavy overpainting on the Vatican Museum laboratories yielded affirmation that the portray was undeniably from Mantegna’s hand. The attribution was made that yr, although it was solely introduced earlier this week.
“Its iconography is linked to Renaissance models and the artist’s typical classicism, with references to antiquity that make it unique in Mantegna’s production,” Fabrizio Biferali, the curator of Renaissance Arts on the Vatican Museums, who co-organized the exhibition, mentioned in an announcement.
After its show in Room 17 of the Pinacoteca, the “Deposition of Christ” will probably be returned to the Sanctuary in Pompeii, after which it should discover a everlasting house in a piece of the Diocesan Museum.
