It is the first time in its history that he does something similar. Send a message in a bottle, taking advantage of social networks and new media, to find a picture that has been looking tirelessly for a year and a half. And it does not appear. The painting, dated in 1760, is a beautiful Santa Cecilia (Patroness of musicians) with Chelo, work of (1728-1779). The Madrid pinacoteca prepares for next November an exhibition of fabrics never seen from the painter and will give it the maximum space: the rooms A and B. its title: Anton Raphael Mengs. The greatest painter of the 18th century.
The museum has published this Friday a video on its Instagram account a video with a message from Andrés Úbeda, Deputy Director of Conservation and Research of the Prado and one of the sample commissioners. “The exhibition is almost ready, we have a magnificent set of works. But unfortunately we lack one that would be of extraordinary interest in the exhibition. Simply, we don’t find it, ”he says. Then he teaches the image of the picture on his phone.
But let’s go back to the painting. It is an essential canvas in his career. Painted in Rome, the echo of (1560-1609) and the proximity of (1581-1641) is seen. The Santa Cecilia In “search and capture” it is not an unknown fabric: it was seen in Dresde (The invention of classicismState art collections) y Padua (Mengs. The discovery of the neoclassicalPalazzo Zabarella). Two exhibitions that coincided in time: 2001. There was last seen. For almost 25 years nothing is known about her.
We are, now, in July last year. In that summer Rome where heat seems to melt the Apia road. , now newly appointed Head of Painting of the 18th century and Goya del Prado, he knows the house of the last lender. As? His name and direction was in the loan leaf letterhead of the German exhibition. Steffie Roettgen (who has elaborated the artist’s reasoned catalog) puts him on the Roman track. The commissioner arrives at a beautiful house and a distrustful goalkeeper. After two visits, in that eternal canicle, he manages to find out that the work belongs to a doctor, already deceased, and knows that one of his children has suffered an accident. Nothing else. When the guard went to work on the farm for a long time that the family had left and the house is full of offices. The painting is a ghost.
Roettgen knows that this work was bought by the father in London and that it is authentic (she herself has analyzed) and of enormous quality. The name of the Italian family (Úbeda prefers not to reveal it) is oblivious to the collecting circuits. Rather it seems an acquisition by chance. “It’s almost a desperate call,” summarizes Úbeda. The work is important because it responds to that short Roman influence. And not even the Italian government knows anything about her. He does not appear on his list of what in Spain would be a good of cultural interest (BIC) and has not come abroad because he would have had to ask permission.
The importance of the piece
Why so much bustle for a specific work? Mengs is the most important neoclassical painter in Europe. Together with his friend Johann J. Wincklemann (1717-1778) “generates an artistic practice and theory that will be the European reference for two decades. that drinks from classical Greece and that will be in force until 1830: ”, Reflects Andrés Úbeda. The Prado, in his own words, knows that the exhibition, scheduled for November, is “brave.”
“It is the type of samples that it likes to do in the Pinacoteca. Mengs is not such a known painter because museums do not dare with artists who are not so famous. This is a project that opens a path. ” The claim of an exceptional painter, who has not yet found his site in history, and who, together with Johann J. Wincklemann, looks at the Greek classical statute and, in addition, he is a creator of an extraordinary transcendence. These are the three reasons. Now, to complete the story, you need a Santa Cecilia That was last seen 25 years ago. If you know anything, reason: the meadow.
