Caravaggio to Canaletto. The Glory of Italian Baroque and Rococò Painting

A few years ago the Museum of Fine Arts set the noble and ambitious target of presenting Italian painting between the 15th and 18th centuries in two successive exhibitions. The first show, entitled - Botticelli to Titian and - staged in 2009 - 2010, was one of the most successful events in the modern history of the museum. The exhibition featuring the subsequent period of Italian painting, entitled Caravaggio to Canaletto, Two Centuries of Italian Masterpieces, will be put on as the closing event of the Italian--Hungarian cultural season. Its significance both from the point of view of the museum and of Hungarian cultural life lies in the fact that no similar,l comprehensive exhibition on Italian Baroque painting has ever been organized in Hungary.

In the 17th and 18th centuries Hungary maintained lively cultural relations with Italy - first and foremost with the North-Italian artistic centres. The new accomplishments of Baroque and Rococo painting were transmitted both by the large number of Italian artists visiting Hungary (e.g. Pietro Liberi, Antonio Galli Bibbiena, Carlo Innocenzo Carlone, Francesco Casanova etc) and also by the numerous works of art pouring in into the country. The 600 pieces of our Baroque and Rococo collection make it one of the richest sections of the Old Masters' Gallery. Its core is made up of the collections of great Hungarian aristocratic families, such as the Esterházys, Pálffys and Zichys, but noteworthy works have come as well from the former collection of László János Pyrker, archbishop of Eger and patriarch of Venice. Károly Pulszky, first director of the National Picture Gallery, also enriched the material with outstanding acquisitions.

Virtually all the significant centres of Italian painting of the time - among others Rome, Naples, Bologna, Genoa, Milan, Florence and Venice - are represented in the Museum of Fine Art's collection. The paintings of leading masters like Annibale Carracci, Niccolò Renieri, Artemisia Gentileschi, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino), Francesco Furini, Daniele Crespi, Luca Giordano, Bernardo Cavallino, Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Battista and Domenico Tiepolo, Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto) and Bernardo Bellotto will be exhibited from among the material of the Old Masters' Gallery.