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May 2005 Issue
Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, Celebrates Homecoming of Artwork from the Vatican with Gallery Talk
The Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC, celebrates the homecoming of its world-renowned painting, The Immaculate Conception by Jusepe de Ribera (1591- 1652), after its three months on view at the Vatican's Braccio di Carlo Magno. In commemoration of the painting's return to South Carolina, Dr. Todd Herman, chief curator at the Columbia Museum of Art, will hold a noontime gallery talk titled "Ribera and Spanish Baroque Painting" on May 25, 2005. Admission to the gallery talk is free with museum admission or membership.
Ribera's The Immaculate Conception traveled to Italy in Feb. 2005 to be included in the Vatican's exhibition, A Woman Dressed in Sun: Iconography of the Immaculate Conception. The exhibition took place in the Braccio di Carlo Magno of the Vatican Museums from Feb. 11 - May 13, 2005, and was organized by the Roman Catholic Church's Pontifical Commission for Cultural Heritage. The commission organized A Woman Dressed in Sun in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of Pope Pius IX's 1854 proclamation of the Immaculate Conception - the dogma which states that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was free from original sin at the moment of her conception. Ribera's 9-by-6 foot painting depicts the Virgin Mary floating atop cumulous clouds and a host of cherubs and was one of 105 artworks included in the special Vatican exhibition.
Dr. Camilla Cerquetti, exhibition coordinator at the Vatican's Braccio di Carlo Magno, reported approximately 28,000 visitors to the exhibition during its three-month installation. The high number of pilgrims and tourists who traveled to Rome during the activities surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI forced the Vatican museums, including the Braccio di Carlo Magno, to close for logistical reasons during the papal transitional period, hence affecting the number of overall viewers to the Immaculate Conception exhibition, according to Dr. Cerquetti.
The Vatican's special show featured works on loan from around the world including the Louvre (Paris), the Prado (Madrid), and the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), and boasted works by the great masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Murillo, Pinturicchio, Guercino, El Greco and, of course, Ribera. The Columbia Museum of Art was the only American institution represented in the Vatican's A Woman Dressed in Sun exhibition.
Ribera was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1591 and eventually settled in Naples, Italy, in 1616, becoming one of the most acclaimed European artists by the 1630s. He completed The Immaculate Conception in 1637 most likely under the commission of the viceroy of Naples for a Spanish monastery.
Samuel Kress, a variety-store magnate from Pennsylvania, purchased the painting in 1957, before bequeathing it to the Columbia Museum of Art in 1962. The museum received its first significant holding from the Kress family in 1954 and has enjoyed eminence as Columbia's premier cultural institution since the 1960s when the art museum was enhanced by its second large gift of Renaissance and Baroque art from the Kress Foundation of New York. Combined, the two Kress gifts form the nucleus of an important European collection at the museum with 77 Old Master Renaissance and Baroque paintings and decorative arts, including Ribera's The Immaculate Conception.
The Immaculate Conception returns to Columbia, the week of May 16, 2005, and will be accompanied by Dr. Herman on its homecoming trip. It will be reinstalled in the John Clifton and Francis Bell Judy Gallery at the Columbia Museum of Art upon its return, and will again preside as one of the preeminent pieces in the museum's permanent collection. Dr. Herman's gallery talk will address not only anecdotes from the museum's recent partnership with the Vatican museums but also historical information on Ribera and the Spanish Baroque period.
The gallery talk takes place on May 25, 2005, at the Columbia Museum of Art from noon-1pm. Admission is free with museum admission or membership.
Call 803/799-2810 for more information,
or visit the
museum's website at (www.columbiamuseum.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2004 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.