Twelfth Dialogue “Prospero Fontana. The Assumption of the Virgin and Saints: restoration and rediscovery.”

Prospero Fontana’s newly restored large altarpiece Vergine Assunta e santi in dialogue with another painting by the artist from the Quadreria di Palazzo Magnani in Bologna and a reproduction of a Uffizi drawing.

The focus of the new exhibition, which, as always, sees the museum’s masterpieces in relation to other guest works, is the restoration of Prospero Fontana’s large altarpiece with The Assumption of the Virgin and Saints, carried out in the Pinacoteca di Brera’s restoration laboratory, which has enabled the recovery of the Bolognese Mannerist’s extraordinary characteristic coloring, now totally obscured. The artist’s creative process was reconstructed thanks to historical and technical studies, supported by an extensive diagnostic campaign.

Next to and in dialogue with the Braidense altarpiece, another painting by Prospero Fontana,The Assumption of the Virgin and the Four Patron Saints of Bologna, from the Quadreria di Palazzo Magnani in Bologna, one of the variants made by the artist on the same iconographic theme, will be displayed on the adjacent wall.
The two works will be paired, in reproduction, with the design drawing for the Braidense altarpiece executed by Giorgio Vasari, now kept at the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, a valuable reference for understanding Prospero Fontana’s modus operandi.