Titian, “Flora,” ca.1516-18, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, in BMFA’s “Titian Tintoretto Veronese” exhibition
In my post on Antiquities Diplomacy: More Italian Loans to the Getty, I stated that the patience of Michael Brand, the Getty’s director, “in crafting antiquities collaborations
with Italy, rather than arranging immediate compensatory loans (as was
done when the Metropolitan Museum and Boston Museum of Fine Arts relinquished their objects) is finally paying off handsomely for the Getty.”
George T.M. Shackelford, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts’ chairman of European art and curator of modern art, responds:
Come up to Boston to see Titian Tintoretto Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice (through Aug. 17) and you will see how wonderfully our not “immediate” but instead long-term collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Culture has turned out. Because of our ongoing relationship, and because of their confidence in the thesis of this exhibition, they helped us to obtain truly major loans that otherwise might not have happened.
Speaking of which, the credit line for that show says: “The exhibition is presented under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.” In addition, President Giorgio Napolitano on Mar. 7 awarded BMFA Malcolm Rogers a medal as “Commander of the Order to the Merit of the Italian Republic,” for “fostering…the cultural cooperation between the MFA and Italy”—a reference, most likely, to this:
