A Deposition of Christ whose recent
restoration has enabled a definite attribution to Renaissance
master Andrea Mantegna will go on show at the Vatican Museums
for three months from March 20 before returning to its home at
the Shrine to the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary at Pompei near
Naples.
The show, 'The Pompei Mantegna, A Rediscovered Masterpiece', is
in the Vatican's Picture Gallery, Room XVII.
The attribution was made three years ago.
"Called by Monsignor (Tommaso) Caputo (Pompei Archbishop) to
view the work in March 2022 - reports Barbara Jatta, Director of
the Vatican Museums - we immediately understood that under the
layers of repainting there was an extraordinary pictorial
material. The restoration revealed iconographic and technical
details that confirm the autograph of Mantegna, returning to the
history of art a masterpiece that was thought to be lost. Then
the 'machine' of the Vatican Museums started, with diagnostic
tests, research and restoration".
Fabrizio Biferali, curator of the department for Art of the
15th-16th centuries of the Vatican Museums, states that "the
scientific analyses and the restoration have clarified that the
work is not a copy, but an original painting by Mantegna".
photo: Mantegna's Dead Christ, celebrated for its dramatic
foreshortening technique
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