From Titian to Rubens

From 5th September until 1st March 2020 the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, in conjunction with the City of Antwerp, VisitFlanders and the Flemish Community, presents From Titian to Rubens: Masterpieces from Antwerp and other Flemish Collections, an exhibition curated by Ben Van Beneden, director of Rubenshuis in Antwerp. The magnificent Doge’s apartments have been transformed into veritable ‘constkamers’, rooms filled with exquisite art demonstrating the riches of Flemish collections. Featuring masterpieces by artists including Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Michiel Sweerts, the exhibition offers a dazzling array of works, and the finest group of Italian and Flemish art to come to Italy.

Three icons of Venetian painting return to their hometown of Venice: Titian’s Jacopo Pesaro presenting Saint Peter to Pope Alexander VI, the altarpiece of the former San Geminiano church, covered by the press worldwide as David Bowie’s Tintoretto, and Titian’s Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter
(thought to be a depiction of Titian’s mistress Milia and their daughter Emilia). These masterpieces from Flemish collections, both public and private, are rarely lent and some have never, until now, been shown in public.

From Titian to Rubens is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A special section of the exhibition is devoted to Flemish star composer Adriaan Willaert who settled permanently in ‘la Serenissima’ to become Maestro di Cappella of the Basilica di San Marco in 1527. It was Willaert who founded the celebrated Venetian School of music that was to instruct, among others, Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi.