Masterpieces from World Museums at the Hermitage
Lorenzo Lotto, The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with St. Catherine Carrara and The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with St. Justina

On 17 May, 2002, the World Museum Masterpieces at the Hermitage Program presented a rather unordinary show. Alongside The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with St. Catherine of Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1556) loaned by the Carrara Academy in Bergamo, The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with St. Justina from the Hermitage collection is showed for the first time. The painting, kept for over 200 years in the museum's storerooms, was considered a replica or even a copy made in the artist's studio from the Bergamo original.

The rare chance to see these two works side by side allows to compare both versions. The full restoration of the Hermitage canvas undertaken in 1999-2001 revealed a genuine work by Lorenzo Lotto. The painting stands comparison with the Carrara Academy composition of which it is not a simplified version. Inclusion of St. Justina into the scene attests to the composition's independent significance. The Hermitage version may have been created earlier than that of Bergamo. It is especially close to another version from a private collection published in 1956 which bears a signature and the year, 1529. The restoration revealed, among other things, folds of the cloak on the Virgin's shoulder which initially hang freely. Only in the Hermitage version the Virgin is put into the tree shade, as Lotto did in another of his paintings, Virgin with Child and Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Thomas (1529-1530), from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The Hermitage composition with St. Justina must have been created around the same time, opening a sequence of similar scenes with St. Catherine.

No doubt Lorenzo Lotto's The Rest on the Flight to Egypt with St. Justina will take its place of pride in the Venetian Renaissance painting exhibition and add a new item to the list of the master's original works.

The State Hermitage Publishing House put out an exhibition booklet written by the exhibition's curator Irina S. Artemyeva.

More

At the exhibition opening

The booklet