Italian Painting of the 17th Century in the State Hermitage Collection. Scientific Catalogue of Svetlana Vsevolzhskaya

6 July 2010 the press-conference dedicated to presentation of the scientific catalogue of S. N. Vsevolzhskaya Italian Painting of the 17th Century in the State Hermitage Collection was held in Milan in Palazzo Clerici, and then in Ferrara, in the Hermitage-Italy Scientific Center.

In Milan the presentation of the catalogue was attended by Alexey Paramonov General Council of the Russian Federation in Italy, Massimo Vitta Zelman President of Publisher SKIRA, Mikhail Piotrovsky Director of the State Hermitage, Irina Artemieva and Francesca Cappelletti Directors of the hermitage-Italy Scientific Center, Vladimir Matveyev Deputy Director of the State Hermitage, and Sergey Androsov Head of the Department of Western European Fine Art of the State Hermitage, as well as numerous representatives of mass media of the largest Italian printed publications.

In Ferrara Marcella Zappaterra President of Ferrara Province and Tiziano Tagliani Mayer of Ferrara were present alongside with the delegation of the Hermitage.

The Hermitage collection holds 430 painting works of Italian painters of the 17th century; the catalogue represents 285 works, many of which have been introduced to the scientific circulation for the first time. The acquisition issues of pictures of famous Italian masters of the 17th century and their followers are studied in the catalogue, the analysis of works is given. The pictures collection of Italian painting of that period in the Hermitage is one of the largest in the world alongside with such museums as: Louvre, Paris, Prado, Madrid and the Museum of Art History in Vienna. S. N. Vsevolzhskaya (1930-2007), the custodian of Italian painting worked in the hermitage for 50 years and since 1953 and up to her death was involved in studying of Italian painting of the 15th-19th centuries. S.O. Androsov, I. S. Artemieva, T. K. Kustodieva, T. B. Bushmina as well as Francesca Cappelletti and Barbara Guelph took part in preparation of the catalogue for publication.

The catalogue with the total size of 270 pages contains 105 colored and 184 black and white illustrations, prepared in Italian by the publisher SKIRA, Milan, 2010, in the series Museum and Collections. The introductory articles by Marcella Zappaterra President of the Hermitage-Italy Foundation and Mikhail Piotrovsky Director of the state Hermitage as well as Irina Artemieva and Francesca Cappelletti open the catalogue.

7 July 2010 the session of the scientific Committee of the Hermitage-Italy Center, where the issues of further publications preparation on collections of Italian art kept in the State Hermitage collection were considered, was held in Ferrara. Candidates for scientific trainings and plans of the Hermitage participation in events for 2011, which is declared the year of Italian culture in Russia and Russian culture in Italy, were also discussed.

Italian Painting of the 17th Century in the State Hermitage Collection. Scientific Catalogue of Svetlana Vsevolzhskaya