Exhibitions: “Memories of Italy: Intersection of Cultures” Exposition in Krasnodar

Upon the decision of the UNESCO the year of 2011 was declared the Year of Italy in Russia and the Year of Russia in Italy. The Krasnodar Krai Art Museum marks the event with the exhibition from its own collections,"Memories of Italy: Intersection of Cultures." The works by Italian and Russian artists composing the exhibition are represented in several thematic sections.

The first section features an Italian collection of Feodor Akimovich Kovalenko. The section includes copies of paintings by Raphael ("Self-Portrait," "Madonna in the armchair"), made for the collector by Giuseppe Parrini, copyist from Florence.

The second section includes original works of art and graphic works which were delivered to the museum after the revolution. In 1920-1930s, the Soviet government pursued a policy of redistribution of collections of central museums, directing some of them to provincial towns. A considerable part of the collection consists of paintings, etchings and engravings by Italian artists, which were of particular interest for connoisseurs and lovers of this art form. For example, two Italian landscapes (ink, pen) by Annibale Carracci, come from the private collection of Russian Emperor Paul I.

The third section consists of works by Italian artists of the first half of the 19th century who had worked in Russia and Russian artists of the same epoch, who had long lived in Italy. An example of such an intersection of two cultures is the "Portrait of Countess A. M. Stroganov," painted by a fashionable painter of the time Pietro Rotary, and the "Italian landscapes" by Russian artists, F. M. Matveev and S. F. Schedrin for whom Italy had become the second home.

The fourth section features the copies of famous paintings made on the instructions of the Academy of Arts by its best students