From Naples to New York, intesa SanPaolo celebrates great Italian art on the other side of the ocean. It was presented Thursday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on “Martyrdom of St. Ursula”, the 1610 work by Caravaggio from the Gallerie d'Italia-Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, museum headquarters of Intesa SanPaolo in Naples. It is one of the most important works in the bank's collection and will remain on public display at the Met until 30 June. The painting is an extraordinary testimony of the extreme season of Michelangelo Merisi known as Caravaggio. Present at the ceremony were Gian Maria Gros – Pietro, president of Intesa Sanpaolo, Michele Coppola, head of Intesa Sanpaolo's Cultural Activities, and Francesco Genuardi, Italian Consul in New York.
In exchange for this important loan, from 6 May the Neapolitan museum will host another extraordinary masterpiece by Caravaggio from the Metropolitan Museum: 'I Musici'. The loan of the work to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is part of a strategy to enhance the Intesa Sanpaolo art collection and a policy of collaboration and synergy with the most important international cultural institutions. These are part of the actions of Progetto Cultura, the three-year plan of the Bank's cultural interventions, together with the development of the museum complex of the Gallerie d'Italia in Milan, Naples and Vicenza, and Restituzioni, a proven program
restoration of the country's artistic and architectural assets.
The exhibition at the MET offers an important opportunity for the American public to see the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula side by side for the first time with another painting by Caravaggio, the Denial of Saint Peter, the date of which directly depends on the stylistic comparison with the work of Intesa Sanpaolo. Both paintings are executed in a rapid style, with minimal elaboration. A style that can be defined as "essential", if not radical and revolutionary, and with an engaging psychological insight.
The MET audience, therefore, has the opportunity to grasp the comparison between these two works executed shortly before the artist's death, which pave the way for a modernism with no sequel in the seventeenth century, with parallels only in Velázquez's late work.
The exhibition is set up in the MET room dedicated to Caravaggio and Neapolitan painting.
"The Intesa Sanpaolo group - declared the president Gian Maria Gros-Pietro - has always been convinced that cultural activities represent an effective vehicle for collaboration between peoples"
