Exhibition
The Annunciation by Tiziano Vecellio (1490-1576) is the Masterpiece for Milan 2021, an initiative now in its 13th edition which, as usual, accompanies visitors throughout the Christmas period.
The large canvas (280×193 cm), a work of the Venetian master’s full maturity, characterized by vibrant luministic research, comes from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, in storage from the church of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, part of the Fondo Edifici di Culto collection administered by the Ministry of the Interior.
The work was executed around 1558 for the Pinelli family, bankers and merchants of Genoese origin who moved to Naples for their chapel in the transept of the church, dedicated to the Virgin Annunciata in 1575 by Cosimo Pinelli. Signed “Titianus f” on the kneeler, the Annunciation constitutes one of the cornerstones of the artist’s maturity and represents a rare episode of Venetian painting in sixteenth-century Naples. The canvas reveals the highest achievements of the mature Titian evident in the extraordinary luministic effects, in particular in the glittering robes of the angel, in pink and silvery damask, woven with gold threads, in the rendering of the flashes that imbue the pictorial material and in the freedom of the composition. The space is dominated by a single architectural presence, the imposing column behind the Virgin, while in the background, on the left, a glimpse opens up with an autumn landscape, with shades of brown and red that stand out against the blue of the sky. The Virgin gathers humbly with her arms crossed on her chest, while the angel reaches her with a dynamic gesture and a beam of light descends from heaven surrounded by a swirl of angels.
The exhibition is part of the celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the Museo Diocesano .
