Masterpieces from World Museums at the Hermitage
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Love Victorious

The new Masterpieces from World Museums at the Hermitage exhibition shows the canvas Love Victorious of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610) from the Painting Gallery of the Berlin State Museums, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. This is an exchange for the Hermitage loan of Caravaggio's Lute Player for the exhibition ''Caravaggio and Giustiniani'' (Rome and Berlin, 2001). Both canvases come from the collection of Giustiniani, one of the most famous collections in Italy. It was put together from the late 16th century by the two brothers, cardinal Benedetto and marquis Vincenzo. The gallery existed for two centuries, then in 1808 it was taken to Paris for sale. Before the auction started, Lute Player was bought for the Hermitage by the Louvre director Dominique Vivant Denon, and 157 paintings including Love Victorious were bought in 1815 by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III for the museum which was then created in Berlin. It is highly symbolic that in Berlin the exhibition was held in Altes Museum where the gallery opened in 1830 and in Rome, in the Giustiniani Palace which now belongs to the Italian Republic's Senate. In the 19th century it housed the Russian Embassy in the Vatican. The Emperor Nicholas I when on visit in Italy stayed at the Giustiniani Palace as witness an inscription in Russian and Latin adorning the staircase wall. The State Hermitage Publishing House put out a booklet for the exhibition written by Svetlana N. Vsevolozhskaya, Senior Researcher at the West European Art Department.

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Georgy V. Vilinbakhov, Deputy Director Research of the State Hermitage Museum opening the exhibition

Svetlana N. Vsevolozhskaya, Senior Researcher at the West European Art Department and Anna Maria Erlen, Deputy Chair, Karl Friedrich Museums Society opening the exhibition

At the exhibition