”Brukenthal Exclusive” at Art Safari

Art Safari reached its 11th edition.

Ion Puican, 06.05.2023, 19:21

In the old center of the capital Bucharest, the Dacia-Romania Palace venued the 11th edition of the renowned Art Safari exhibition. The event offered the public, beyond the exhibitions opened in February 2023, several special events. Among them, the temporary exhibition Brukenthal Exclusive, where the public had the opportunity to admire some of the most valuable paintings in Romania, brought for a short period to Bucharest, from the Brukenthal Museum in Sibiu (central Romania). Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803) was a Saxon judge and the Habsburg governor of the Great principality of Transylvania. He was also a passionate art collector, as well as the founder of the museum that has been bearing his name since 1790.

Five world masterpieces from the Brukenthal Museum were displayed in Bucharest, namely the famous Portrait of a man with a blue chaperon by de Jan van Eyck (1390-1441), a Flemish painter of the late Middle Ages, considered a true innovator and having a decisive role in the history of European painting. According to legend, he was the artist who perfected oil painting. The other masterpieces are Portrait of a man reading and Portrait of a woman at prayer by Hans Memling (1435-1494); Ecce Homo by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, 1488-1576), the famous Italian painter of the Venetian school and the small portrait Head of a Child by the painter Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), an artist belonging of the late Renaissance.

The director of Art Safari, Ioana Ciocan, told us more about how this special exhibition: Alexandru Chituță was the curator of this exhibition, and he thought of an exhibition of masterpieces. This means that, out of the total of 1,200 paintings that belonged to Baron von Brukenthal, 50 are true world masterpieces, and of these 50, the ones exhibited in Bucharest are the most important. The works of these great artists can only be found at Brukenthal. These are Veronese, Titian, Van Eyck and Hans Memling. When I heard the proposal of the Brukenthal Museum, I was extremely honored and very surprised. The most valuable work in Romania, Portrait of a man with a blue chaperon by Van Eyck, was displayed inside the Dacia-Romania Palace, on Lipscani Street, in the center of Bucharest.

The insurance value of the works borrowed from the Brukenthal Museum was 75 million euros, an extremely large amount for Romania. How, then, were the works insured? Ioana Ciocan: “We were able to insure the masterpieces with the help of international brokers. The works are insured in Great Britain because the amount to be paid and the speed with which this project was done made it impossible to insure them on Romanian territory. We would have liked to have a Romanian insurer, though. With the secure transport, secured by gendarmes and CPI Security was a bit easier, because we were able to make the transport with Orbit Fine Art, which already has experience in transporting cultural goods of universal value, the Heritage category. So things were a little easier there.

The director of Art Safari made us a confession related to the recent designation of the Art Safari as a Strategic Project for Romania, by the Ministry of Culture. At the same time, Ioana Ciocan told us more about some of the projects that Art Safari is preparing: First of all, we are very honored by Minister Lucian Romașcanu’s decision to declare Art Safari a strategic project. We are, in fact, aware of all the responsibility that this honorary title carries and are already preparing exciting exhibitions for 2024 as well. The 2023 exhibition included, in addition to these Brukenthal masterpieces, an exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery and one from the prestigious Victoria and Albert Royal Museum. A Nicolae Grigorescu exhibition is next, between May 4 and 14. We have an exhibition of ‘Angels and Demons’, curated by ‘Victoria and Albert’, and specially made for Art Safari.

There is also the Artachino retrospective, curated by Elena Olariu, staged in partnership with the Bucharest Municipal Museum and the National Museum of Art. Of course, along with these two museums, there are our long-term partner museums – Constanța, Iasi, Cluj, Timișoara, Oradea, Satu-Mare . I don’t have time to list them all, although I would like to. They are also with us at every great retrospective that Elena Olariu stages. And, of course, the National Portrait Gallery has created an exhibition entitled ‘Love Stories’, especially for Art Safari, which included masterpieces by Van Dyck, but also by Angelika Kauffman or Man Ray. (EE)