Having just gotten my Pfizer booster shot (thank you, Walgreens), I returned home to the temperature-raising news that the National Gallery of Art, Washington, had canceled its long-planned (already postponed) A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600–1750—an astonishing turn of events that the NGA attributed to “the worsening COVID-19 crisis.”
As explained in the NGA’s announcement:
The pandemic has created a number of complications and a level of uncertainty that would compromise our ability to present this highly anticipated exhibition in a manner that meets the expectations of our audiences and adequately tells the story of this important place and period in history. With only weeks before the exhibition was scheduled to open, we were confronted with multiple pandemic-induced challenges. These included uncertainties over international shipping restrictions, the possibility of audience limitations if the pandemic continues to escalate, and concerns over the health and safety of our staff managing an intense installation in close quarters, among other issues.”
Curated by Jonathan Bober (the NGA’s senior curator of prints and drawings), Piero Boccardo (superintendent of collections for the City of Genoa) and Franco Boggero (director of historic and artistic heritage at the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio, Genoa), the show was to “feature some 60 paintings: masterpieces by non-Genoese artists drawn to the city’s vital environment, including Peter Paul Rubens, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Orazio Gentileschi, Anthony van Dyck; outstanding works by the school’s few artists who are well known because of their activity outside the city—Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Alessandro Magnasco; and superb examples by native Genoese painters who worked primarily in the city and remain largely unknown—Gioacchino Assereto, Valerio Castello, Domenico Piola, Gregorio De Ferrari, and Bartolomeo Guidobono.
Here’s one of the show’s highlights, which CultureGrrl readers may remember in another context:
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
The show was also to have included some 60 works on paper, 15 of which are from the NGA’s collection, “most just recently acquired.” If all goes according to plan (and you feel inclined to travel), you may still be able to see a version of this show (Mar. 4–June 19) at what was to have been its second (and final) venue—Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. That said, I could find no mention of it on that institution’s website.
If the show’s a no-go, at least you can peruse its 384-page catalogue, published last year:
It seems that the Metropolitan Museum got in just under the wire in opening its similarly ambitious show of Florentine portraits dating from the previous century (1512-1570). I’m still awaiting word on whether one work that had been delayed due to “Covid complications”—the portrait of Jacopo Cennini by Franciabigio, owned by Queen Elizabeth II—ever made it to New York.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll stop typing for a bit. My Pfizered arm is feeling a little bit sore!
UPDATE: Responding to my renewed query, the Met’s press office has now informed me that due to “ongoing travel complications, we will not be able to include that piece [the Franciabigio] in the exhibition.”
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