A LANDMARK exhibition of more than 40 Italian paintings will showcase some of Glasgow's finest art-works when it tours England and the US.
Essence of Beauty: 500 years of Italian Art will first go on display next year at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum before embarking on an extensive tour of North American museums and galleries.
Four years in the making, the exhibition will run in Glasgow from April 6 to August 12 at a cost of around £100,000. It is the first chronological show of the best of the city's collection of Italian art – which it believes is the finest civic collection of its kind in the UK.
Several paintings have been restored, re-framed and re-studied for the show, and Glasgow Life, which runs the city's galleries, is now opening a public appeal for donors to help stage the exhibition.
Several works in the exhibition are regarded as undisputed masterpieces, painted by some of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting – such as Bellini, Titian, Rosa and Botticelli.
The paintings will be accompanied by decorative art and armour, sculpture, Venetian glass and rare ceramics and the publication of a new scholarly catalogue.
Conservators at the galleries have given new life to works such as the Adoration of the Magi, a 16th-century painting by an unknown artist – now simply known as the Glasgow Master. It has been revealed in its true glory after a heavy and discoloured varnish was removed at the city's museums resource centre in Nitshill.
One of the most high-profile donors to the show is Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, who is an ambassador for the public appeal and has personally sponsored the restoration of the Adoration of the Magi.
He said the exhibition will not only show the public what Italian art treasures Glasgow holds in its collections, but will also offer a chance for people to feel they have "made a contribution" towards the display.
Glasgow Life said it does not have a target for the public appeal, but that every donation will help offset the high costs of staging such a show.
The archbishop said: "This exhibition allows visitors to see in a unique and impressive collection of some of the most important paintings of 500 years of Italian art.
"I have been delighted to follow the extensive preparatory work in pulling this marvellous display together and I look forward to seeing it open.
"It will undoubtedly be one of the most important exhibitions anywhere in the UK in 2012.
"I am very happy to support the Adoration of the Magi. It has been known about for some time, but its true value has only become known since they have cleaned it."
Around 40 of the exhibits will tour the UK and the US. They will be shown at Compton Verney House in Warwickshire before moving to a series of as yet unconfirmed venues in the US arranged by the American Federation of Arts.
Councillor George Redmond, chairman of Glasgow Life, said: "Never before have so many of our masterpieces been on display in one exhibition alongside many other works created at the same time. The tour will help us tell even more people of the treasures that belong to Glasgow and of the people who gave them to us."
l Donations can be made at supportus@glasgowlife.org
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