ABU DHABI // Paintings by two masters of the Italian Renaissance have been acquired by the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum and were revealed last night at Manarat Al Saadiyat.
Madonna and Child by Giovanni Bellini, painted circa 1480-50, and Jacob's Journey by Jacopo Bassano, circa 1565-70, are both part of the key canon in the evolution of Renaissance painting.
The works have entered the permanent collection of the museum, which is a development of the Tourism Development and Investment Company and scheduled to open on Saadiyat Island in 2015.
Images of the works were shown at the fifth instalment of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Talking Art lectures and talks, a monthly platform that showcases the museum's acquisitions and invites speakers to discuss their relevancy to the region.
Previous events have announced collections of Buddhist sculpture, funerary artifacts from Pharaonic Egypt and art produced in the royal courts of the Muslim world.
Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh, the adviser to Ministry of Presidential Affairs and vice chairman of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, emphasised the connection between Arab scholarship and the developments in science and the arts in Italy at that time.
"The outstanding achievements of the Renaissance rested on the rediscovery of Greek and Roman texts that had been transmitted through the Dark Ages by the great thinkers of Islamic civilisation," said Mr Nusseibeh.
He also noted the discoveries in the field of optics by Ibn Al Haytham, a scientist and polymath born in Basra in 965, which were instrumental in the development of depth and perspective in Renaissance painting.
Sophie Mouquin, the director of studies for the Ecole du Louvre, agreed, saying: "Renaissance art would have been unimaginable without this development in its visual language."
Mother and Child, depicting the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus against a stark black background, "demonstrates a finesse of draftsmanship', said Laurence des Cars, the curatorial director of Agence France-Museums.
She called the work "an early masterpiece", and described its artist as, "embodying the transition to the modern, rational way of depiction that we call the Renaissance".
The work by Bassano, painted 80 years later, shows the return of the biblical Jacob to the land of Canaan, yet depicts it in a typical Venetian countryside environment of ochres, greys and bluish tints.
Speakers made connections between the merchant families who were keen patrons powering the boom in Italian art during the Renaissance, and the patronage taking place in the Gulf's art centres today.
Ms des Cars also reiterated the Louvre Abu Dhabi's aspirations to be a "universal museum".
The next instalment of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Talking Art Series, on March 28, will showcase acquisitions of Orientalist painting by western artists of the 18th century.
clord@thenational.ae
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
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Juventus 2 (Bonucci 36, Ronaldo 90 6)
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Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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