(by Luciano Fioramonti) (ANSA) - ROME, DEC 28 - It is back to the Borgheses Gallery as a real Christmas present 'Danza Campestre', a painting by Guido Reni, long considered missing, attributed to the hand of other seventeenth-century masters and only in 2017 recognized as the work of the great exponent of the Baroque.
Latela, in Rome since December 23, was bought back by the Roman museum for about 800 thousand euros at the Fondoantico gallery in Bologna, which had exhibited it in March 2020 at Tefaf, the international art and antiques fair in Maastricht.
The procedure, initiated last spring by the previous director Anna Coliva, therefore closes with a happy ending the troubled story of this work created around 1602.
`` Having identified a painting that certainly came from the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese gives us great satisfaction - says Francesca Cappelletti, new director of the Gallery - not only because it belonged to the collection but because we are talking about Guido Reni, the favorite painter of Scipione Borghese and Pope Paul V '' .
The confirmation of the paternity of the painting is due to the antiquarian Patrick Matthiessen who included the painting in the catalog dedicated to the works of Guido Reni published in 2017.
'' When we reopen we will have something more to offer - observes Francesca Cappelletti - The fact that even in this difficult moment the museums continue to work and achieve great results is the confirmation that we have never stopped and that we are ready to welcome the public again with important news '' '.
The hope is to present the painting next autumn alongside other works of the same period '' to contextualize the activity of Guido Reni and to rediscover this artist that the general public still considers only a classicist and an academic and not a very varied painter with extraordinary expressive potential. ''.
(HANDLE).