“From today the antique dealer will no longer be looked upon as a criminal by this State that does not understand that works of art are universal goods”. Word of Vittorio Sgarbi, who at the Court Theatre of the Royal Palace of Caserta presents the exhibition “From Artemisia to Hackert. Story of an antiques collector at the Royal Palace”: 112 paintings that the Italian antiques dealer Cesare Lampronti, whose gallery is in London, lent for four months to the art gallery of the Palazzo Vanvitelliano. The exhibition, which will be officially inaugurated today (18 pm), will be open until January 16, 2020. “Lampronti – says Sgarbi – is good and generous; his work is finally recognized today, having brought back to Italy, in over 50 years of career, 12 thousand paintings; Lampronti has enriched Italy and today he also enriches the Reggia. His story also demonstrates what I have been saying for a long time, that is, that the art market in Italy must be freer; today it is subject to too many regulations that make it a minor market”. The Roman antique dealer, born in 1942 to a Jewish family, also had to reconstruct his family's entire artistic heritage, "annihilated" by the fascist racial laws. Disappointed twice by Italy: in 2012, in fact, “due to a climate of ostracism and distrust towards our work – explains Lampronti himself, present today at the Reggia – I moved my historic gallery from Rome to the centre of London, a painful decision and one I experienced with great bitterness. I have continued to focus my interest on Italian painting: I like to consider my current gallery as a window of culture of our art in the international world”. The gallery owner also hopes that “the figure of the antique dealer becomes central to Italian culture”. The director of the Reggia Tiziana Maffei, who took office a few months ago when the organizational machine of the exhibition, conceived by the former director Mauro Felicori, was already in full operational phase, says she is enthusiastic because this event "was the proof of how the Reggia must face initiatives of this kind, that is, by teaming up, and overcoming the physiological difficulties in a museum in which the needs related to enhancement must be combined with those connected to necessary maintenance". The exhibition was born from the idea of bringing the world of private collecting and art galleries closer to that of museums, understood as places dedicated to the enjoyment and cultural valorization of increasingly heterogeneous "audiences". The aim of the exhibition is to show the link between the works already present in the royal collection, exhibited in the rooms of the Palace, and the paintings present in the Lampronti Gallery, as well as to enhance the charm of 600th and 700th century painting in its entirety. On this occasion, Jakob Philipp Hackert's Port of Salerno will be exhibited for the first time in Caserta, which is the missing "piece" of the Ports series created by Hackert for King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. The exhibition, therefore, becomes an opportunity to show visitors the entire series of Ports of the Kingdom, recently restored. The project includes the exhibition of additional paintings of views of Naples and Campania, made by painters present in the collection of the Reggia. The selected works can be traced back to five different thematic areas: Caravaggio paintings, 600th century paintings, views, landscapes and still lifes. Among the artists on display are Artemisia Gentileschi, Bernardo Cavallino, Salvator Rosa, Luca Giordano, Baciccio, Pietro da Cortona, Rubens, Pompeo Batoni, Guercino, Canaletto, Bellotto, Gaspar van Wittel, Jakob Philipp Hackert, Antonio Joli, Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Francesco Solimena, Bartolomeo Bimbi and Paolo Porpora.
Royal Palace of Caserta, a record-breaking 2025: over a million visitors and strategic construction sites underway.
Caserta – Over one million visitors in twelve months, new spaces reopened to the public, major structural renovations funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), and an increasingly strong international presence. 2025 marks a turning point for the Royal Palace of Caserta, which consolidates its position among the leading Italian and European cultural centers.
Crash in the tunnel of the Royal Palace of Caserta: man dies trapped in his 500X
A tragic traffic accident occurred late yesterday evening in Caserta, along State Road 700, inside the Royal Palace Tunnel. A man lost his life after a violent collision involving two cars, a Porsche and a Fiat 500X, quickly transforming the tunnel into a death scene. According to initial reports…
Caserta, December 7: Free admission to the Royal Palace for Sunday at the Museum
Caserta – An unmissable opportunity for culture lovers: on Sunday, December 7, the Royal Palace of Caserta is participating in the Ministry of Culture's "Sunday at the Museum" initiative, offering free admission to the Vanvitelli Complex. The Royal Apartments and Royal Park are open to the public, while some areas, such as the Vanvitelli Rooms, the Amelio Room, and the Court Theater, will remain closed.
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