Drawings from Venice: Masterworks from the Museo Correr

Drawing from Venice: Masterworks from the Museo Correr presented 128 works selected from the magnificent collection of the municipal museum of Venice. Organized by Terisio Pignatti and Giandomenico Romanelli, the exhibition included drawings by 73 painters, sculptors, and architects.

The particular qualities that distinguished the art of Venice were well illustrated in the selection of work, which spanned the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. The Venetian love of texture and surface pattern was clear from the earliest of the drawings, Battle Scene (c. 1490-1496) by Ercole de Roberti. The special richness and breadth of scope of the Correr's collection in the art of the 18th century was represented by Giambattista Tiepolo, as well as by Pietro Longhi's charming genre studies. Francesco Guardi, last of the great view painters, captured the luminous quality of light and atmospheric effect that characterized much of Venetian art. Neoclassical works included sculptural studies by Antonio Canova, as well as superb architectural renderings by Giannantonio Selva and artist, designer and decorator Giuseppe Borsato.

The exhibition was accompanied by a book-length catalog published by Trefoil Books, London. The catalog included an essay by Professor Pignatti and reproduced all of the works included in the exhibition, many in color.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a series of lectures and paper conservation workshops had been planned. Speakers included Terisio Pignatti, former director of the Museo Correr, and David Rosand, Professor of Art History, Columbia University. Margaret Holben Ellis, Associate Conservator of Prints and Drawings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, conducted two workshops on paper conservation.