“The room
owes its name to the presence, at the time of the Corsini family, of a
fireplace in Ginori porcelain embedded in the center of the northern wall,
where now is Christ and the adulteress by the Venetian Rocco Marconi. Known in
the documents as 'Room of Mirrors' or 'Great Room', the setting was intended to
function as a cabinet: a place of study and meditation of the cardinal and
private audience hall in which were received guests who arrived after crossing
the magnificent gallery of representation (Room III)” (Official website of the
Corsini Gallery - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)
It was
found in the years 1732/34 during the excavations to build the Corsini
Chapel in the Basilica of St. John Lateran
Two small
bronze statues “Diana the Huntress” and “Adonis” by the Florentine Antonio Montauti (1685/1740), sculptor appreciated by
the Corsini family
“Christ and the Adulteress” by Rocco
Marconi (known from 1504/d. 1529)
“It has long
been debated about the role of Marconi in the artistic context of the lagoon
after the conclusion of the Bellini experience, assessing the degree of
reception and involvement in the trends that developed under the influence of
Giorgione, Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo. Against an overall reductive
judgment of the capacity of Marconi to adapt to the new guidelines, expressed by
Ansaldi and Garas and taken up by De Vecchi (...), later critical opinions
stood back to a position more prone not only to consider Marconi as one of the
most outstanding students of Bellini (Gibbons, Tempestini, Heinemann), but also
to appreciate his progressive growth in the changed Venetian environment of the
twenties” (Giorgio Tagliaferro - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)
“Madonna and Child” by Andrea d'Agnolo aka Andrea del Sarto (1486/1531)
“It is like
a stage for the aesthetic ideal of the Bolognese painter, the undisputed
champion of the seventeenth-century classicism, with carefully building
lighting effects and a perfect balance of form. (...) The rarefied atmosphere
of the composition typical of the Bolognese artist work between the thirties
and forties, can be found in contemporary works or a little later, as Blessed
Andrea Corsini of the Pinacoteca di Bologna and especially Salome at the Art
Institute of Chicago, which has in common with the Corsini painting the marked
pathos of the Baptist's expression” (Official Website of the Galleria Corsini -
galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)
“St. Jerome” sixteenth century by an unknown artist of the Venetian school
“Adoration of the Shepherds” about 1562 by Jacopo da Ponte aka Jacopo Bassano (about 1510/92)
“Today is
unanimously considered one of the masterpieces of Jacopo's mature production.
The artist adopts here a compositional model already tested in previous
versions of the same subject (such as the ones at Hampton Court or at the
Accademia in Venice), bringing subtle but significant variations. The role of
the shepherds in the scene takes on a distinctly important central focus of the
composition, all played on vivid contrasts” (Official Website of the Galleria
Corsini - galleriacorsini.beniculturali.it)
“Adoration of the Magi” by Donato
Creti (1671/1749)
“In his
production of portraits, unfortunately not intense, he often reaches through an
immediate pictorial style, shy of decorative tinsel and false modesty, a
penetrating psychological and daring insight, full of a deep human energy”
(Giancarlo Sestieri)
Four marvelous
pastels by Rosalba Carriera (1675/1757) of the
years 1741/43: the “Four women’s faces representing the four elements: fire, water, air and earth“
“She was
very famous throughout Europe, demanded by princes and kings who assiduously
attended her studio. Specialist in pastel technique, she gave to her finest
portraits a mundane Rococo grace with soft and light colors and a fluffy and
soft as powder touch. Rosalba's pastels found wide resonance in France: they
would be taken into account also by artists of firmer mettle, such as Maurice
Quentin de la Tour and Perroneau” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio
Giuliano)
Six small
paintings on copper with “Stories of criminals” from works by the French painter Jacques Callot (1582/1635), including one with “Execution of a criminal” by Giovanni
Paolo Pannini (1691/1765)
“St. John the Baptist” seventeenth century by an unknown artist of the school of Guercino
“Noli Me Tangere” sixteenth century copy by unknown artist from the original by Federico Barocci
aka Barocci
“Martyrdom of St. Andrew” and large oval “Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist” by Carlo
Maratta (1625/1713)
“The
paintings of this artist of extraordinary ability does not contain puzzles or
anything that would shock a viewer, anything that would arouse violent
emotions. His fluent way of handling the current allegorical language, the
impersonal generalizations of which his work abounds, the admission of the
right amount of festive splendor, all this predestined his grandiloquent style
to become the courtly style par excellence in the Europe of Louis XIV. Maratta
was not an artist devoted to speculation and theories” (Rudolf Wittkower)
“Portrait of Cardinal Domenico Morone” by Scipione
Pulzone (about 1550/98)
“In May 1600
he left for a study tour in Italy; he was first in Venice and then in Mantua
where Vincenzo Gonzaga gave him the job of official court painter, a position
he kept during all of the eight years he spent in Italy. (...) The art of
Rubens was endless; his great talent evolved slowly and he found his own style
only after his return from Italy, meditating constructively on those
experiences” (Enciclopedia Treccani)
“St. Francis in meditation in the desert” by Annibale
Carracci (1560/1609)
“Deposition of Christ from the Cross” sixteenth century, by an unknown artist from the Emilia region
“Portrait of Cardinal Bernardino Clesio” about 1531 by the German Bartel Bruyn (1493/1555)
“Bruyn was
influenced in part, as Ragghianti says, from portraits by Raphael, but
translated into a language in which the Gothic hardness is frozen in a realism
severe and far, knowing, though, how to seize the pride and cunning attitude of
the character in the cold and calculating eyes, stressed by the uneven raising
of his eyebrows” (Sivigliano Alloisi)
“Portrait of Wolfgang Tanvelder” by Hans
Maler zu Schwarz (1480/1529)
“St. Rose
of Lima” by Agostino Masucci (1691/1758)
“Madonna and Child” by G.B. Salvi aka Sassoferrato (1609/85)
“Portrait of a Gentleman” by an anonymous
seventeenth-century Genoese artist
“Portrait of a little girl” by the Flemish Giusto Sustermans (1597/1681)
“Cain killing Abel”, “Esau sells his birthright” and “Martyrdom of St. Stephen” by Francesco
Trevisani (1656/1746)
“Revolt of the peasants” and “Looting of a village” by the Flemish Jan Baptist Van Der Meiren (1664/about 1736)
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