Caravaggio`s “La Buona Ventura”(The Fortune Teller):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York
The Speed Art Museum
and
The FIAC Foundation for Italian Art and Culture
Announce a press conference to pres ent:
Caravaggio’s “La Buona Ventura”(The Fortune Teller):
A masterpiece from the "Musei Capitolini", Rome –
The Cultural Heritage Department of the Municipality of Rome
On view for five days only at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York
(May 11 - May 15, 2011)
DATE:
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 11:30 AM
LOCATION: Italian Cultural Institute of New York, 686 Park Avenue, NY NY
New York, April 27, 2011
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York announces a press conference to present an
exceptional five-day-only exhibition on its premises, of Caravaggio’s La Buona Ventura
(The Fortune Teller). This unique exhibition represents a rare opportunity for New
York’s art lovers to admire one of this Italian Baroque master’s mesmerizing
masterpieces.
Following the New York presentation, La Buona Ventura (The Fortune Teller) will
travel to The Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, where it will be on view from
May 18 to June 5. The painting will then go the National Art Gallery of Canada in
Ottawa where it will be included in the exhibition Caravaggio and His Followers in
Rome.
Press Conference speakers: Dr. Charles L. Venable, Director of The Speed Art Museum,
Prof.Sergio Guarino, curator of the Musei Capitolini and the Director of the Italian
Cultural Institute New York, Prof. Riccardo Viale.
This exhibition was organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and The
Speed Art Museum.
This exhibition was made possible by the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture and was
generously underwritten by The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky.
Special thanks to Musei Capitolini, Rome
Media R.S.V.P.
Eva Zanardi
Tel. 212 879-4242 ext.333
Fax 212 861-4018
[email protected]
www.iicnewyork.esteri.it
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In conjunction with the exhibition, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and
Hunter College NY have organized a symposium on May 13, 2011: “Caravaggio’s Gypsy
Fortune Teller: Virtues and Vices in Post-Tridentine Italy”
Location: Hunter College –NYC, 695 Park Ave, NY, NY (North Building, room 1527
north)
Time: 9:00 am to 1:00 pm
Speakers:
Prof Richter, Professor of Renaissance Art History at Hunter College
Prof Catherine Puglisi, Professor of Baroque Art at Rutgers University, NJ
Prof Christopher Atkins, Professor of Baroque Art at Queens College
Free Admission
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The Painting:
La Buona Ventura (The Fortune Teller) is a painting by Italian Baroque master
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It exists in two versions, both by Caravaggio, the
first from 1594 (now in the Musei Capitolini in Rome), the second from 1595 (in the
Louvre museum). The dates in both cases are disputed.
The Fortune Teller is one of two known genre pieces done by Caravaggio in the year
1594, the other being Cardsharps. The Fortune Teller is believed to be the earlier of
the two, and dates from the period during which the artist had recently left the
workshop of the Giuseppe Cesari to make his own way selling paintings through the
dealer Costantino. The painting shows a foppishly-dressed boy, having his palm read by
a gypsy girl. The boy looks smugly pleased as he gazes into her face; he fails to notice
that she is removing his ring as she gently strokes his hand; to his ingenuous selfsatisfied gaze she returns her own, quietly mocking and sly.
Caravaggio's biographer Giovanni Pietro Bellori tells that the artist picked the gypsy
girl out from passers-by on the street in order to demonstrate that he had no need to
copy the works of the masters from antiquity. When he was shown the most famous
statues of Phidias and Glykon in order that he might use them as models, his only
answer was to point towards a crowd of people saying that “nature had given him an
abundance of masters.” This passage is often used to demonstrate that the classicallytrained Mannerist artists of Caravaggio's day disapproved of his insistence on painting
from life instead of from copies and drawings made from older masterpieces, but
Bellori ends by saying: "...and in these two half-figures [Caravaggio] translated reality
so purely that it came to confirm what he said." The story is probably apocryphal Bellori was writing more than half a century after Caravaggio's death, and it doesn't
appear in Mancini or in Giovanni Baglione, the two contemporary sources who had
known him - but it does indicate the essence of Caravaggio's revolutionary impact on
his contemporaries - beginning with The Fortune Teller - which was to replace the
Renaissance theory of art as a didactic fiction with art as the representation of real
life.
The 1594 Fortune Teller aroused considerable interest among younger artists and the
more avant garde collectors of Rome, but, according to Mancini, Caravaggio's poverty
forced him to sell it for the low sum of eight scudi. It entered the collection of a
wealthy banker and connoisseur, the Marchese Vincente Giustiniani, who became an
important patron of the artist. Giustiniani's friend, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del
Monte, purchased the companion piece, Cardsharps, in 1595, and at some point in that
year Caravaggio entered the Cardinal's household. For Del Monte Caravaggio painted a
second version of The Fortune Teller, copied from the Giustiniani .
The Artist
MICHELANGELO MERISI DA CARAVAGGIO
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, revolutionary naturalist painter, was born in
Caravaggio near Milan, the son of a mason, in 1571.
He showed his talent early and at the age of sixteen, after a brief apprenticeship in
Milan, he was studying with d'Arpino in Rome.
During the period 1592-98 Caravaggio's work was precise in contour, brightly colored,
and sculpturesque in form, like the Mannerists, but with an added social and moral
consciousness. By 1600 when he had completed his first public commission the St.
Matthew paintings for the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, he had established himself
as an opponent of both classicism and intellectual Mannerism.
Caravaggio chose his models from the common people and set them in ordinary
surroundings, yet managed to lose neither poetry nor deep spiritual feeling. His use of
chiaroscuro - the contrast of light and dark to create atmosphere, drama, and emotion
- was revolutionary. His light is unreal, comes from outside the painting, and creates
deep relief and dark shadow. The resulting paintings are as exciting in their effect
upon the senses as on the intellect.
Caravaggio's art, strangely enough, was not popular with ordinary people who saw in it
a lack of reverence. It was highly appreciated by artists of his time and has become
recognized through the centuries for its profoundly religious nature as well as for the
new techniques that had changed the art of painting.
Though Caravaggio received many commissions for religious paintings during his short
life, he led a wild and bohemian existence. In 1606, after killing a man in a fight, he
fled to Naples. Unfortunately, he was soon in trouble again, and so was forced to flee
to Malta where, in October of 1608, Caravaggio was again arrested and, escaping from
a Maltese jail, went to Syracuse in Sicily. While in Sicily he painted several
monumental canvases, including the Burial of Saint Lucy (1608, Santa Lucia, Syracuse)
and the Raising of Lazarus (1609, Museo Nazionale, Messina). These were multi-figured
compositions of great drama achieved through dark tonalities and selective use of
lighting. These works were among Caravaggio's last, for the artist died on the beach of
Port'Ercole, Tuscany on July 18, 1610, of a fever contracted after a mistaken arrest.
The Exhibition- “Caravaggio`s La Buona Ventura (The Fortune
Teller): a masterpiece from the "Musei Capitolini", Rome”
At the Italian Cultural Institute of New York,
686 Park Avenue-New York (between 68th and 69th Street), NY 10065
From May 11 to May 15 - 2011
Gallery hours:
May 11- 12- 13 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
May 14- 15 from 11:00 am to 6 00 pm
Free admission
A series of guided tours through the galleries will be open to selected,
professional groups.
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York
Founded in 1961, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York is an office of the Italian
government, dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture in the United
States through the organization of cultural events.
Under the guidance of its trustees at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its advisory board,
and its staff, the Italian Institute of Culture of New York conforms to this commitment
by fostering the cultural exchange between Italy and the US in a variety of areas, from
the arts to the humanities to science.
Central to the Italian Cultural Institute’s mission is a constant effort to encourage the
understanding and enjoyment of Italian culture by organizing and promoting cultural
events in collaboration with the most prominent academic and cultural institutions of
the East Coast. The Italian Cultural Institute of New York focuses on the development
of initiatives aimed at showcasing Italian excellence in various fields, such as science,
technology, the arts and design. The development of academic exchanges, the
organization and support of visual arts exhibitions, the grants for translation and
publication of Italian books, the promotion of Italian studies, and the cooperation with
local institutions in planning various events that focus on Italian music, dance, cinema,
theater, architecture, literature, philosophy etc., are just a few examples of the
Institute’s initiatives.
In conclusion, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York provides an “open window” on
the cultural and social aspects of past and current Italy.
For more information on the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, please visit:
[email protected]
The Speed Art Museum
The Speed Art Museum has launched plans for a major expansion and renovation of its
facilities designed by Kulapat Yantrasast of wHY Architecture -- the design for the
project was unveiled in early April. Landscape architects Reed-Hilderbrand are
designing the greenspace for the site in a modern-day realization of a plan that was
originally conceived by the Olmsted Brothers, but was never completed. The Museum
is Kentucky’s largest art museum with a collection that spans 6,000 years of human
creativity. An independent museum located on the campus of the University of
Louisville, the Speed plays an important role in the cultural and educational life of the
region. The Speed is currently presenting Impressionist Landscapes: Monet to Sargent,
on view through May 22, 2011. Unveiling the New Speed: A Model of the Future,
which details the Museum’s expansion plans, is also on view. Caravaggio’s The
Fortune Teller: A Masterpiece form the Capitoline Museums, Rome will be on view
May 18 to June 5, 2011. More information on the Speed Art Museum is available at
www.speedmuseum.org.
FIAC Foundation for Italian Art and Culture
The Foundation for Italian Art and Culture, FIAC, is a non-profit, US incorporated
organization established in New York City in 2003. FIAC's main purpose is to promote
the knowledge and the appreciation of the Italian cultural and artistic traditions from
the classical period to modern times in the United States and it works in closely with
the Italian Ministry of Culture to accomplish this mission. In addition to sponsoring its
own programs and exhibitions, FIAC acts as an intermediary between Italy and the
United States to facilitate exchanges between American and Italian institutions.
FIAC encourages all US institutions and individuals interested in Italian art and culture
and the planning of events to contact the Foundation to discuss future collaborative
opportunities.
http://www.fiacfoundation.org/