From Titian to Rubens: Masterpieces from Antwerp and other Flemish Collections

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.