Alfredo Barsanti

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Alfredo Barsanti (* 1877 ; † 1946 ) was an Italian art dealer in Rome .

Life

Barsanti started his apprenticeship with the art dealer Attilio Simonetti at the age of 15 . After further years of apprenticeship with the antique dealer Eliseo Borghi near the Palazzo Barberini , he went into business for himself, supplied the American archaeologist and dealer Edward Perry Warren in Boston and later John Marshall in New York. He bought the house at 48 Via Sistina, formerly known as Casa Buti , above the Spanish Steps . From the stately building that had once housed Piranesi , Thorvaldsen and Canova , he created one of the most important art dealers in Rome.

The shop sign advertised antiques, antiques, antique furniture , paintings, marble and bronze sculptures. His customers included the museum directors Leo Planiscig from Vienna and Wilhelm von Bode from Berlin, the writer and archaeologist Sara Yorke Stevenson , the Swedish King Gustav V , the collectors Sigmund Freud , Albert Figdor , Gustav von Benda , Oscar Bondy , Johann II . von Liechtenstein , Karl Graf Lanckoroński , John Pierpont Morgan and Hermann Göring through the mediation of Walter Andreas Hofer . J. Paul Getty began his collecting career in 1939 at the Barsanti Gallery.

In 1909 he sold a marble relief designed by Andrea Bregno in 1491, which until 1606 was an altar in Alt-St. Peter , the banker John Pierpont Morgan, who donated it to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art . A depiction of the Trinity from the 14th century, also painted by Agnolo Gaddi , went to the Florentine collector Arnaldo Corsi and later also overseas.

In a legal dispute in 1915, three archaeologists confirmed the authenticity of a bronze head that Barsanti had sold to the dealer Giuseppe Sangiorgi in May 1912 .

In 1914 he sold an ancient relief depicting the Mysteries of Eleusis , a Roman copy of the Great Eleusinian Consecration , to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

collection

Alfredo Barsanti put together a collection of 110 small bronze sculptures from the Renaissance . In 1922 he had the scientific catalog of his collection published. The author was the well-known archaeologist Ludwig Pollak . Wilhelm von Bode wrote the introduction to the book. The splendid volume was published in an edition of 150 copies and was only intended for a select group of recipients. One of the tomes bound in purple calfskin and silk was given to King Victor Emmanuel III. dedicated, other copies were given to Pope Pius XI. and Mussolini . The publication led to an immediate reaction from the Italian state, which banned the sale and export abroad of the collection classified as significant. The collection was acquired in 1934 at the suggestion of Marcello Visconti di Modrone, Podestà (Mayor) of Milan , with money from Milanese businessmen and donated to Mussolini and incorporated into the museum of the Palazzo Venezia .

literature

  • Augusto Jandolo: Le memorie di un antiquario . Ceschina, Milan 1935, pp. 300-306.
  • Margarete Merkel Guldan: The diaries of Ludwig Pollak. Connoisseurship and art trade in Rome 1893–1934 . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-7001-1242-4 , pp. 91–94. 204.
  • Ludwig Pollak: Roman Memoirs. Artists, art lovers and scholars 1893–1943 , ed. by Margarete Merkel Guldan. L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 1994, ISBN 88-7062-863-9 , pp. 141-142. 179–180 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Pietro Cannata: Sculture in bronzo. Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia . Gangemi, Rome 2011, ISBN 978-88-492-2262-3 , pp. 18ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pietro Cannata: Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Sculture in bronzo. Rome 2011, p. 21.
  2. ^ J. Paul Getty: The Joys of Collecting, How One Man's Quest of Art Led To the Founding of a World Class Museum. Los Angeles 2011, p. 28.
  3. ^ Entry in the database of the Metropolitan Museum .
  4. ^ Entry in the database of the Metropolitan Museum .
  5. ↑ Rodolfo Lanciani , Federico Halbherr , Roberto Paribeni : Sull 'autenticità di una testa di bronzo . In: Ausonia. Rivista dell Societá Italiana di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte 9, 1919, pp. 123-138 ( digitized version ).
  6. ^ Entry in the database of the Metropolitan Museum .
  7. ^ Raccolta Alfredo Barsanti. Bronzi italiani (Trecento - Settecento) con prefazione di Guglielmo Bode pubblicati da Ludovico Pollak. Rome 1922 [Bergamo, Istituto italiano d'arti grafiche]. See also apprezzamenti. Raccolta Alfredo Barsanti. Bronzi italiani (Trecento-settecento) . Istituto Italiano di Arti Grafiche, Bergamo 1928 (collection of letters of thanks from the recipients of this volume).
  8. ^ Ludwig Pollak: Roman Memoirs, Artists, Art Lovers and Scholars 1893-1943. L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 1994, ISBN 88-7062-863-9 , p. 142.
personal data
SURNAME Barsanti, Alfredo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian art dealer in Rome
DATE OF BIRTH 1877
DATE OF DEATH 1946