Four fragments of a large Renaissance painting that was
"butchered" for the art market over 200 years ago have been
reunited for the first time.
By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent, The
Telegraph
7 Feb 2009
Only three pieces from Paolo Veronese's 16th century masterpiece
the Petrobelli Altarpiece were thought to have survived.
The 18ft-high canvas was cut up in 1788 to be "sold just like
meat in a butcher's shop", as one contemporary art dealer put
it.
But in a 'Eureka!' moment Xavier Salomon, curator of the Dulwich
Picture Gallery in south London, identified the fourth part after
visiting the Blanton Museum of Art in Texas.
When he starting work on a project to bring the three pieces
together, he wondered if the small Veronese he had seen there,
called 'Head of an Angel', was the missing piece of the jigsaw.
Tests later proved it was the central piece - the head being that
of St Michael. The original showed him standing in triumph over
Satan.
Now the four parts have been reunited for an exhibition at
Dulwich Picture Gallery, which opens next Tuesday (Feb 10).
Dr Salomon said: "Everybody thought the centre piece was
destroyed. I thought, 'What if they just kept the head of St
Michael, rather than the full figure?' "
When he turned to a photograph of the small piece to refresh his
memory, he thought: "That's it!"
"It's just been an incredible thing to see it all come back
together," he said. "It's a once in a lifetime experience."
The three largest fragments are owned by the Dulwich Picture
Gallery [lower right], the National Gallery of Scotland [lower
left], and the National Gallery of Canada [top]. None have come on
the market for decades. Theoretically they would fetch "millions",
said Dr Salomon, before adding they were "priceless".
His discovery completes well over a century of detective
work.
It was only in 1862 that the first three were linked and until
the 1950s it was thought the missing central part contained no
figure at all.
But restoration of the Dulwich fragment revealed the
"dismembered hand" of St Michael and his cloak had been painted out
by unscrupulous dealers to make it more sellable. Analysis of the
other two told a similar story.
Veronese painted the work around 1565 for the family chapel of
cousins Antonio and Girolama Petrobelli. It hung in the church of
San Francesco, Lendinara, north east Italy, until 1785, when the
church was destroyed. Three years later the altarpiece was cut
up.
Dr Salomon said: "The idea that anyone could go to it with a
knife to cut up and sell is rather staggering, but that is what
happened."
The whereabouts of the other missing pieces remains a
mystery.