“It’s a revelation,” said Richard L. Feigen, collector of art, when asked what it was like for him to view his private collection spread out across the first floor of the Yale University Art Gallery in all its glory. He stood like a proud father, admiring the magnificence of paintings that usually perch on walls in his New York home, some side by side across the entire dining room wall. To see each in its own space is indeed nothing short of revelation.
Select and specific paintings from private collections often find their way to museum exhibitions, but for an entire collection of paintings to be exhibited in its entirety for the first and only time is unprecedented. This renowned collection of Italian paintings from one of the finest private collections of Italian art in existence is currently on view at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven. The collection belongs to Richard L. Feigen, who has been collecting and dealing art for more than 50 years.
The collection features some 60 paintings, major works from the 14th through the 17th century by celebrated artists such as Fra Angelico, Lorenzo Monaco, Annibale and Ludovico Carracci, Domenichino, Guercino, and Orazio Gentileschi. Organized by Laurence Kanter, the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art, the exhibition draws from a wide-range of Italian paintings never catalogued or exhibited before. Yale, America’s oldest and one of its most important university art museums offers visitors a unique opportunity to view these works.
Widely admired for its depth and quality, these paintings range from early Italian Renaissance to mannerist and baroque work. They are now documented in a 181 page full color catalogue published by the Yale University Art Gallery. The cover flaunts “Barna”/Lippo Memmi, “Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul and Ten Angels, ca 1330 – 1335. As beautiful a reproduction as it is, to stand in front of it is to marvel at the tempera and oil on panel. The painting is near immaculate condition. Looking at this painting up close one can’t help but notice the expressions on the faces of those represented in the work. The expressions show emotions ranging from bored and complacent to downright angry.
According to the catalogue, “No topic in the study of early Italian painting has been as contentious nor subject to as wide a variety of opinion as the historical identity of the artist whom Giorgio Vasari called Barna da Siena, supposedly the author of a cycle of New Testament frescoes in the right nave of the Collegiata at San Gimignano and traditionally considered one of the most expressive almost original masters of the Sienese trecento.”
Another truly magnificent painting is that of Orazio Gentileschi, “Danae and the Shower of Gold,” ca. 1623. This expansive oil painting measures 63 ¾ x 90 inches. An exquisite study in light and texture, the folds of the draperies in this painting are as delicate and vivid as the gold flowing from the heavens. Reportedly, this “Danae is relatively chaste, although it was reported to be a part of a series of paintings focusing on women of ambiguous virtue with one subject from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and one from the classical mythology.”
More mysterious is the Annibale Carracci, “Virgin and Child with St. Lucy and Young St. John the Baptist,” 1587-88. St. Lucy is presenting her eyes to the Virgin. It is an intimate and loving portrait of the blind St. Lucy and the caring Virgin. It is the earliest known painting by Annibale.
Even more of a mystery is the Polito del Donzello painting “The Archangel Raphael Prevents a Suicide.”
The subject of the painting has not been identified, but “…in a sparsely furnished interior, an angel cuts the rope of a noose with which a young man has attempted suicide.” There are two other companion pieces to this one showing the same figures and the angel leading the young man by the hand into a church supposedly to confess his sin for attempting so foul an act and to undertake penance for forgiveness. In the final piece the young man’s posture and downcast eyes suggest his contrition.
This collection is alive with brilliant color, texture, and light. It is an opportunity to see an amazing collection that will return to Richard L. Feigen’s home after this exceptional exhibition. These paintings will be on display through Sept.12.