Naples for passion. Masterworks from the De Vito collection

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Naples pour passion. Chefs-d’œuvre de la collection de Vito

Dijon, Musée Magnin, du 29 mars au 25 juin 2023.
Aix-en-Provence, Musée Granet, du 15 juillet au 29 octobre 2023.

1. De Vito Foundation in Villa Olmo
Photo : Didier Rykner
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We were probably among the first in France to talk about the De Vito Foundation, housed in the Villa di Olmo (ill. 1) in the Tuscan countryside a few kilometres from Florence, which preserves a remarkable collection of Neapolitan paintings assembled by the industrialist and art historian Giuseppe De Vito (1924-2015). We refer to this article for the history of this institution and we will focus here on the works presented at the Magnin Museum and then at the Granet Museum in Aix-en-Provence, as part of the exhibition dedicated to it. Even for those who have had the chance to see the collection in situ, a visit to the Musée Magnin is exciting because the works are seen differently and certainly in better conditions than in the Villa di Olmo (ill. 2 and 3), even if the charm of the latter does of course add a very special cachet. It confirms that the paintings are of a very high quality which fully justifies this event, especially as it is a museum of collectors, Maurice and Jeanne Magnin, who host another collector, Giuseppe De Vito.


3. View of the exhibition of the De Vito collection at the Musée Magnin
Photo : Didier Rykner
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3. View of the exhibition of the De Vito collection at the Musée Magnin
Photo : Didier Rykner
See the image in its page

Pierre Rosenberg, in his preface to the catalogue - of good quality with essays and notes, as we appreciate them - explains the difference between these collectors. The Magnins were bulimics, buying a great deal, from all schools and all centuries. De Vito very quickly concentrated on Neapolitan painting of the 17th century, of which he became one of the most eminent specialists, going so far as to found a journal dedicated to it. The number of works in his collection is relatively small: sixty-four in all, but the quality is very high and consistent. The exhibition shows exactly forty of them, thus constituting a faithful reflection of the whole. Although he endeavoured to show a complete panorama of the Neapolitan Seicento, he was particularly interested in some of the subjects featured in the Dijon display, notably the Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds, of whom he owned several canvases and about whom he published extensively. If the identification he proposed with the painter Giovanni Do is nowadays strongly questioned, his work on this anonymous artist remains fundamental, as Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée reminds us in an interview given with Giancarlo Lo Schiavo, today president of the De Vito Foundation (and also a collector of Neapolitan paintings, as he confided to us during the press visit).


4. Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds (active in Naples in the middle of 17th century)
Eliezer and Rebecca at the Well, c. 1635-40
Oil on canvas - 179 x 252 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : RMN-GP
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The exhibition thus features no less than four paintings by this anonymous master, none of which were reproduced in our previous article. An essay in the catalogue, devoted to the paintings in the collection belonging to Caravaggio’s naturalism of the first half of the seventeenth century, reviews attempts to identify this artist, between Bartolomeo Passante, Giovanni Do and more recently the hitherto totally unknown Pietro Beato. The hypothesis that all the works gathered under this conventional name are not by the same painter is not excluded, and the paintings shown here do not deny it. The largest of the four, Eliezer and Rebekah at the Well (ill. 4), does indeed seem rather different from Old Man Meditating on a Parchment (ill. 5). Both are rather attributed by recent criticism to Bartolomeo Passante, the former in collaboration with his master Pietro Beato by Nicola Spinosa. It is likely that this issue will be debated at length, which is not the case for their quality, especially for the Juvenile Figure Smelling a Rose (ill. 6), which is also often given to Passante, and is certainly one of the most poetic paintings in the collection.


5. Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds
(active in Naples in the middle of 17th century)
Old Man Meditating on a Parchment, c. 1640-45
Oil on canvas - 97.5 x 72 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : Didier Rykner
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6. Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds
(active in Naples in the middle of 17th century)
Juvenile Figure Smelling a Rose, c. 1635-40
Oil on canvas - 104 x 79 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : RMN-GP
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7. Massimo Stanzione (1585-1656)
Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, c. 1630
Oil on canvas - 180 x 151.5 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : RMN-GP
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Among the most striking works at the beginning of the tour is undoubtedly Massimo Stanzione’s Saint John the Baptist in the Desert (ill. 7), which is very strongly influenced by Caravaggio’s paintings of the same subject, especially the one in the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Ribera’s Saint Anthony the Abbot, which we had reproduced in our first article or Bernardo Cavallino’s The Death of St. Joseph (ill. 8), which is typical of this painter’s compositions and figures in which naturalism is combined with the utmost refinement. A little further on, another painting by this artist can be admired, Saint Lucy, a mature work unlike the first, which is more often attributed to the painter’s youth. But one of the most extraordinary paintings in the collection - which is also the last one purchased by Giuseppe De Vito in 2012, three years before his death - is Christ and the Samaritan Woman by Antonio de Bellis (ill. 9), from a British collection.


8. Bernardo Cavallino (1616-1656)
The Death of Saint Joseph, c. 1640
Oil on canvas - 113 x 92 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : Didier Rykner
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9. Antonio de Bellis (active between 1635 and 1660)
Christ and the Woman of Samaria, c. 1645
Oil on canvas - 224 x 170 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : RMN-GP
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10. Mattia Preti (1613-1699)
The Deposition of Christ, c. 1675
Oil on canvas - 179 x 128 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : RMN-GP
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Among the painters favoured by the collector are also Mattia Preti and Luca Giordano (he did much for the study of the latter), both of whom are given a section of their own in the catalogue under the title ’The Temptation of the Baroque’. Of the first, represented by three works, we shall retain above all the moving Deposition of the Cross (ill. 10) which we have already illustrated but which we cannot resist the pleasure of reproducing again. It is undoubtedly one of the Cavaliere Calabrese’s masterpieces, painted during the artist’s stay in Malta. This work shows Mattia Preti’s - mutual - indebtedness to Luca Giordano, while at the same time mixing a Caravaggesque light with a possible influence - whether direct or indirect - of Rubens’ Descents of the Cross. Of the latter, of which three paintings are also on display, one can admire, in addition to the Inn scene still depending on Ribera’s style in a composition inspired by Adriaen van Ostade, the impressive Head of Saint John the Baptist (ill. 11), marked by Ribera, where we also see a beautiful still life with the copper bowl that supports the head of the martyr, the sword that was the instrument of the torture and the white linen, almost abstract, whose white responds to the paleness of the saint’s head.


11. Luca Giordano (1634-1705)
Head of Saint John the Baptist, c. 1657-60
Oil on canvas - 46 x 62 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : Didier Rykner
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12. Paolo Porpora (1617-1673)
Still Life with Fish and Shellfish in a Landscape, 1640-45
Oil on canvas - 50 x 68 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : Didier Rykner
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This is a good transition that the hanging reserves between religious painting and the section dedicated to still life, another favourite terrain of the collector. The most important Neapolitan painters of this genre are exhibited here: Paolo Porpora, Giovanni Battista Recco and his nephew Giuseppe Recco, Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo and Giuseppe Ruoppolo, probably painters from the same family but whose degree of relationship is not known. The still life of fish, so typical of Neapolitan art, is thus represented by the first two (ill. 12), while Giuseppe Reco shows still lifes of meat, and the latter compositions with fruit and flowers. Flowers are only to be found in the two beautiful paintings by Luca Forte (ill. 13), another major figure in Neapolitan still life painting.


13. Luca Forte (1605/06 ?-after 1653)
Vase of flowers, with roses and irises, 1649
Oil on canvas - 115 x 81 cm
Vaglia (Florence), Fondazione De Vito
Photo : RMN-GP
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14. Luca Giordano (1634-1705)
Saint Anthony of Padua and
the miracle of the chariot
, c. 1700
Oil on canvas - 100 x 60 cm
Dijon, Musée Magnin
Photo : Didier Rykner
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In conclusion, it should be noted that the Musée Magnin, in parallel with this exhibition, has opened a new room which until now has not been accessible to the public. The Neapolitan works conserved there can be seen, without doubt not the richest part of the collection, but we would like to mention here a Gaspare Traversi (18th century painter) and a very nice sketch by Luca Giordano (ill. 14) which would not be out of place in the De Vito collection.


General Commissioners: Bruno Ely, Sophie Harent and Giancarlo Lo Schiavo.
Scientific Commissioners: Nadia Bastogi, Paméla Grimaud and Sophie Harent.


Under the direction of Nadia Bastogi and Sophie Harent, Naples for Passion. Masterpieces from the De Vito Collection, RMN-GP, 160 p., €30. ISBN: 9782711879595.


<Practical information:Musée Magnin, 4 rue des Bons Enfants, 21 000 Dijon. Tel: 00 33 (0)3 80 67 11 10. Open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 12:30 pm and from 1:30 pm to 6 pm. Price: 5.50 € (reduced 4.50 €).

Museum website

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