Research and Resources
Drawings and Prints Cabinet
The Pinacoteca’s less well-known collections include a collection of drawings dating back to the first half of the 19th century, part of a group of drawings that began to build up as teaching supports when the Accademia di Belle Arti was first established. According to a tradition dating back to the school of the Carracci brothers, drawing contains within it a synthesis of the manual and intellectual processes that form the basis of an artist’s training.
The initial core of the collection contains a number of preparatory drawings for paintings now in the Pinacoteca, along with several extremely rare cartoons published only in 1959 in a series of exhibitions in Bologna and bearing out the importance of drawings in increasing our understanding of paintings (and vice-versa) in the wake of a renewed interest in 17th century painting of the Emilian school in the modern era.
The collection has continued to grow thanks to donations and acquisitions that include the drawings of the Surrealists Picabia, Duchamp and Man Ray, offering a truly unique opportunity for research into workshop secrets and into the creative processes through which artists move as they draw ever closer to the execution of the final image.
For inventory review and digitization, consultation of the drawings is exclusively reserved for scholars and conservators of Museums.
By appointment only Wednesday through Friday. Minimum 3-day advance notice.
On Saturdays and Sundays it is not possible to enter the Drawings Cabinet and visit the works kept there.
Given the delicacy and fragility of the executive materials, gold leaf, paper support, consultation of the precious Visconti/Sforza tarots, so-called Brambilla, and the Solabusca tarots, is SUSPENDED to scholars, doctoral students, undergraduates and art historian colleagues. According to the restorers’ assessment, the movement of the tarot cards is extremely harmful to their conservation. In many other foreign Italian museums (Yale University and Pierpont Morgan Library, Accademia Carrara) they are not available for consultation.
Curator:
dott. ssa Letizia Lodi
[email protected]
tel. +39 02 72263234
Photographic Library
The photographic library attached to the Pinacoteca di Brera was founded by Corrado Ricci, Camillo Boito, Giuseppe Fumagalli and Gaetano Moretti in 1899 to offer the museum a collection of artistic reproductions of works of art and monuments both in Italy and abroad as a state-of-the-art tool for study and consultation, to cater for the gallery’s scientific and research needs. The models peopling the imagination of those illustrious men and of their colleagues in charge of Italy’s art institutions in those days were the great museums of Europe and the United States, which had recently acquired such libraries. The original core of the collection was donated by collectors and scholars from all over Italy to whom the founders had launched a public appeal through the press.
The library thus attracted a considerable number of collections of photographic prints by leading amateur photographers known to scholars but other examples of whose work have not been found outside Brera, together with the surviving photographic documentation of the “Circolo Fotografico Lombardo”, the first and most important such institution in Lombardy. The Brera collection includes photographs taken using a broad variety of techniques such as salted paper, aristotypes, cyanotypes, carbon prints and albumen prints, with numerous works by such illustrious vedutisti as Alinari, Brogi, Noack, Naya, Sommer, and Anderson, and by other interesting professional masters of photography ranging from Unterveger of Trento to Incorpora of Palermo, in addition to prints of major international and historical importance by Nadar, Sacchi Frith, Bonfils, Sadic Bey and others.
The photographic library has grown over the years with both old and new documentary material generated by the Soprintendenza’s activity, by the acquisition of photographic collections and through exchange with other institutions. Its growth, however, has also gone hand in hand with an unflagging effort to maintain the library’s existing collection, almost all of which has now been restored, furnished with an inventory and conservation factsheet and stored in a protective environment using public funding.
Viewing by appointment only, from Monday to Friday.
Photoradiographic Laboratory
The Pinacoteca executes photographic documentation of works belonging to its collections and carries out diagnostic survey campaigns aimed at studying the history and execution technique of paintings.
The archived images are derived from the documentation activity, with material dating back as far as the early 20th century.
The archive can be consulted, for study purposes, by appointment only.
Curator:
Dott.ssa Francesca Debolini
[email protected]
Loan guidelines
Prerequisites
1.1. This document indicates the principles according to which loan requests regarding any painting, sculpture, drawing or other object owned by the Pinacoteca di Brera will be evaluated.
1.2. Exchange, loan, and collaboration activities between the Pinacoteca di Brera and other museum or cultural institutions should be considered ordinary and aimed at enhancing the quality of the cultural offerings of the museum as a whole. Therefore, subject to the provisions contained in donations, bequests, deeds of deposit, or special agreements the Pinacoteca di Brera positively evaluates and intends to support a loan program recognizing the importance of the enjoyment of museum works in new contexts and by different types of audiences.
1.3. Ordinarily, the loan of assets included in the “Public list of works of art for which movement from their location may constitute a material or cultural risk” (Attachment A) provided for in the Guidelines for the Loan of Works of Art drafted by the Emiliani Commission in 2006 is not authorized.
1.4. In general, loans are made to other institutions as a matter of courtesy and mutual exchange, as a means of promoting greater understanding and enjoyment of art and cultural heritage, and to advance specialized studies.
1.5. On a transitional basis, in order to preserve, publicize, and enhance the museum’s now-ongoing refurbishment, a moratorium on the lending of works and
Principles
2.1 The Pinacoteca di Brera in its decision to lend or not to lend the works it owns is not subject to political or commercial pressure.
2.1.1. The Pinacoteca di Brera grants the loan of the above-mentioned property only to exhibitions or exhibition events that take place in premises open to the public without restrictions and that meet the exhibition criteria indicated by the Pinacoteca di Brera.
2.2. The Pinacoteca di Brera grants loans for the following reasons:
2.2.1. to expand national and international accessibility to its collections,
2.2. 2. to increase knowledge around the collections of the Pinacoteca di Brera,
2.2. 3. to support the strategic objectives of MiBACT and the Pinacoteca di Brera,
2.2. 4. to increase national and international cooperation between the Pinacoteca di Brera and other museum and cultural institutions.
2.3. The Pinacoteca di Brera does not lend the objects entrusted to its management for the following reasons:
2.3.1. handling poses too great a risk to the physical condition of the object itself or if there is no reasonable certainty that the object will be returned to the Brera Art Gallery at the end of the loan period,
2.3.2. circumstances loom that could damage the reputation of the Museum,
2.3.3. participation in exhibitions in which works declared stolen, illegally exported, or removed in violation of international conventions are exhibited is requested, if there is awareness of such irregularities.
2.3.4. The Management of the Art Gallery does not consider requests received less than nine months in advance of the scheduled date of the move.
Evaluation criteria
3.1. The Pinacoteca di Brera, in considering loan requests from other institutions observes the following criteria:
3.1.1. assesses the conservation condition of the work, with particular attention to its execution technique, fragility, and size,
3.1.2. assesses the suitability of the work for handling and permanence in an environment other than its usual conservation environment,
3.1.3. assesses the effects of the temporary absence of the work on the balance of the museum, especially if it is on public display,
3.1.4. assesses recent movements suffered by the work.
In particular-other than in exceptional circumstances-an asset may not be loaned unless 2 years have passed since it was last loaned,
3.1.5. assesses the historical significance and importance to museum visitors, so as to avoid the displacement of assets that can be defined as identifying for the museum itself,
3.1.6. considers the validity of the scientific project that motivated the request and the significance within it of the work indicated,
3.1.7. assesses the adequacy of the exhibition venue in terms of environmental control, security, and staff qualification,
3.1.8. assesses whether the loan advances art historical knowledge around the requested work,
3.1.9. assesses the responsiveness of the loan to the museum’s overall policies.
Procedures
4.1. Loan requests should be made as soon as possible, but at least nine months before the opening date of the exhibition.
4.2. The decision to grant or not to grant the loan is made by the Director of the Pinacoteca di Brera; in the case of loans abroad prior notification to the General Directorate for Museums, without prejudice to the provisions of Legislative Decree 42/2004.
4.3. The requesting institute or entity must sign the terms and conditions of the loan agreement proposed by the Pinacoteca di Brera assuming all the burdens associated with it and that will be made explicit from time to time.
4.5. The Pinacoteca di Brera has the right to withdraw a loan at any time if the conditions of the contract are not met.
Attachment A
Artworks from the Pinacoteca di Brera generally excluded from loan
A) Works that enjoy great notoriety among the public, including the international public, and identify the Brera Art Gallery in relation to other Museums:
- Giovanni Bellini, Pietà
- Andrea Mantegna, Cristo morto
- Piero della Francesca, Montefeltro Altarpiece
- Donato Bramante, Cristo alla colonna
- Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin
- Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, The Last Preaching of Saint Mark in Alexandria, Egypt
- Jacopo Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of St. Mark
- Caravaggio, The Supper in Emmaus
- Francesco Hayez, The Kiss
- Umberto Boccioni, Rissa in galleria
- Giuseppe Pelizza da Volpedo, Fiumana
- Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of a Young Girl
- Ercole de’ Roberti, Pala Portuense
B) Large-scale works on canvas that need to be rolled in order to be moved.
C) Large-scale works on panel.
D) Polyptychs in their entirety.
E) Paintings up to the nineteenth century still on first canvas.
Pinacoteca di Brera Secretary
tel.: 02 72 263 203
[email protected]