Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi

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Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi (born March 8, 1878 in Ancona , † October 22, 1955 in Florence ) was an Italian art dealer and art collector.

Life

Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi was the son of Camillo Contini and Countess Elena Bermudez Bonacossi. In 1899 he married the wealthy Erminia Vittoria Feroldi in Spain . The children Alessandro Augusto and Elena Vittoria emerged from the marriage.

Contini worked in the Spanish branch of "Chemical Works Ltd. & Co. of Chicago" and from 1904 headed their branch in Madrid . In 1910 the family moved to Rome . With the art historian Roberto Longhi as his advisor, Contini established himself there as an art dealer after the First World War . He kept a large photo archive in order to compare attributions and to identify forgeries or stolen goods.

On repeated trips to the United States, Contini came into contact with American collectors such as Felix Warburg , Simon Guggenheim and Jules Bache . In 1927 he sold several hundred paintings and sculptures to Samuel Henry Kress , the owner of a supermarket chain. He was able to continue the business relationship with Kress until 1941 and from 1948 to 1950 after the war. In Italy his clients included the freight forwarder Achillito Chiesa, the Turin industrialist Riccardo Gualino , the art historians Lionello Venturi , Roberto Longhi and Vittorio Cini .

Contini donated works of art to the Italian state and supported state exhibitions. He provided seven rooms of the Museum of Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome with works of art and donated to the City Museum of Bologna two panels by Vitale da Bologna . The Galleria Borghese received the terracotta model of the tomb of Louis XIV from Bernini . He furnished the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento in the Palazzo Strozzi with matching historical furniture, ceramics and paintings by Cosimo Rosselli and Andrea Schiavone . He financed the restoration of the frescoes by Filippo Lippi in Prato Cathedral .

Contini donated a Pietà by Attilio Selva for the cathedral, which was built in the Libyan city of Tripoli during the Italian colonial period . In 1939 he was appointed Senatore del Regno ("Royal Senator").

Through Gottlieb Reber's mediation, Contini made the acquaintance of Walter Andreas Hofer , Hermann Göring's art agent . The "Interrogation Report No. 2" contains a list of 49 works of art, including a tempera painting by Masolino and two Italian landscapes by Canaletto , which Göring acquired from Contini-Bonacossi in 1941.

After the war, the American art historian Bernard Berenson , who lives in the Villa I Tatti outside Florence, helped him to justify himself to an Allied commission against the accusation of collaboration with the German occupation authorities.

His collection was partially scattered. A selection combining the works of Bernini, Paolo Veneziano , Tintoretto, Veronese with those of the Spaniards Goya, Velázquez and Zurbarán can be seen in the Uffizi.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ diglib.library.vanderbilt ( accessed November 20, 2014)
  2. ^ Chi è?, Dizionario degli Italiani di Oggi, Rome 1940, p. 262
  3. ↑ Senatori dell'Italia fascista, personnel file, tax file (accessed November 20, 2014)
  4. ↑ Lootedart, Dealer Records, Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi ( accessed November 20, 2014)
  5. ^ The Hermann Göring Art Collection, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (accessed November 20, 2014)
  6. ↑ Washington National Archives. NARA M1944. Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, National Archives Catalog, documenting the period 1940 - 1946, Subject File, Category: Contini-Bonacossi - Goering.
personal data
SURNAME Contini-Bonacossi, Alessandro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian art dealer and collector
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Ancona
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1955
Place of death Florence