Two newly arranged rooms have been opened at the Uffizi. The halls dedicated to 15th- and 16th-century Flemish painting are now open to visitors on the second floor of the Uffizi, while the Cabinet of Marbles, a faithful reconstruction of a room centred around the Medici collection of Roman sculptures and reliefs, is made unique by the ancient reliefs set in the walls.
“Today the first three chapters of the previously announced re-composition of the Uffizi’s heritage take shape: the return to the public of Flemish painting, where it was situated in the Lorraine era; the monumental cabinet of ancient marbles, as it appeared to visitors in the 19th century; and, finally, the acquisition of the large painting by the French master of eighteenth-century painting, Pierre Subleyras, to fill a gap in the gallery’s historical-pictorial exhibition layout, as it was conceived by Luigi Lanzi,” remarked Simone Verde, director of the Uffizi Galleries. “This operation marks the beginning of the great return to the future of the Uffizi with roots firmly in the history of the first great western museum, a universal model that is now dynamically looking forward to confirm itself as the laboratory of global museology.”
Among the various works on display in the Cabinet of Marbles are masterpieces such as the two reliefs with the sale of cushions and canvases from a tomb on the Esquiline of the Flavian age, the figure of a seated shepherd, originally part of a monumental nymphaeum of the early imperial age, or the accurate reproduction of the temple of Vesta flanked by the ruminal fig tree. Apart from the walls, the Hall of Marbles continues to be a treasure trove of antiquities, such as the nine marbles arranged along the perimeter of the room.
A selection of 31 paintings in three frescoed rooms in the first corridor of the museum between the Tribuna del Buontalenti and the Cabinet of Miniatures relate the photographic-esque art of the Belgian, Dutch and German painters of the 15th and 16th centuries. On show in the Flemish painting rooms are Hans Memling’s Portrait of a Man with a Letter, Albrecht Dürer’s Apostles and the Madonna, Rogier van der Weyden’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ and Nicolas Froment’s spectacular Triptych.
In addition to the new layout, the Uffizi also announced the purchase of an 18th-century French masterpiece at the international art fair TEFAF Maastricht. Occitan painter Pierre Subleyras’ large canvas The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine de’ Ricci is renowned for its quality, prestigious commission and collection history. The artwork will be restored before being displayed prominently in the 18th-century galleries.
