The National Gallery celebrates its two hundredth anniversary with Caravaggio

The painting, on its way from Naples, is contained in a small room dedicated to him, inside the gigantic museum and entitled “The Last Caravaggio”. He is shrouded in darkness, with a very clever study of lights to illuminate him. To illuminate the work of an absolute master of the use of light such as Michelangelo Merisi. And the impact that the “Martyrdom of Saint Ursula” offers is powerful, emotional and alone is worth a visit, even if it were the umpteenth, to the National Gallery.

The National Gallery turns 200 on 10 May

The director Gabriele Finaldi strongly wanted it and obtained it on loan from Banca Intesa, which is its legitimate owner, as a showpiece to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the museum. “Caravaggio’s final painting is deeply moving and tragic in tone, and seems to reflect the artist’s travails, his troubled mental state and his profound anxiety as he prepared to leave Naples and return to Rome.” This is the most important work of the 35,000 that make up the Bank’s collection, normally exhibited at its museum in the Gallerie d’Italia in Naples and which is returning to the United Kingdom after 20 years. “The decision of the National Gallery in London to celebrate its 200th anniversary with the Caravaggio of the Gallerie d’Italia is a clear testimony to the commitment and role recognized by Intesa Sanpaolo as a great cultural player, not only in Italy”, the comment of the General Director of Gallerie di Italia Michele Coppola.

Two Velázquez are arriving in Naples

As a form of gratitude and as evidence of an active collaboration, the National Gallery will lend two masterpieces by the famous Spanish painter Diego from 24 April to 14 July 2024 at the Intesa Sanpaolo museum in Naples: the “Immaculate Conception” and the “St. Evangelist in Patmos”. Other works by Caravaggio at the National Gallery. In the same room where the “Martyrdom of Saint Ursula” is located, it is also possible to admire another late Neapolitan painting by Caravaggio: “Salome receives the head of John the Baptist”. Finally, the museum has one of the first paintings, known as “Boy Bitten by a Lizard”, an important Roman work: “The Supper at Emmaus”.