GUIDO RENI SURPRISES AT VILLA BORGHESE

GUIDO RENI SURPRISES AT VILLA BORGHESE

Rome's prestigious Villa Borghese Gallery comes back to normal after Covid with a thought-provoking exhibition of the most important works of leading Baroque artist Guido Reni.

The exhibition was inspired, explained curator Francesca Cappelletti, by the recovery of the lost “Danza Campestre” (Country Dance), the only known landscape to have been painted by Reni.

The painting was part of the original collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, one of Rome's most important 17th century patron of the arts, but was sold in the 19th century. All traces of it were lost until 2008, when it re-appeared on the London antiques marketplace. The Borghese Gallery bought it in 2020 and has put it on display for the first time in the “Guido Reni- il Sacro e la Natura” (Guido Reni – Sacred and Nature) special exhibition, running currently until the 22nd May 2022.

The painting gives a detailed and intimate glimpse into country festivities of the time, with groups of young men in hunter's garb and girls in their Sunday best, gathered in the countryside around an open space for dancing. A detail that will arouse visitors' curiosity are the two flies lightly placed in the top right corner of the painting, as if they had been imprisoned in the oil.....

The theme running through the other works on display is the link between sculptures and other paintings that inspired Reni, in particular the sculpture groups by his contemporary Gianlorenzo Bernini.

MARGARET STENHOUSE

Info: Tel.+39.068413979 ga-bor@beniculturali.it (prior booking obligatory)

Posted on 28 Mar 2022 by Editor
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