Masterpieces from the Borghese Gallery

Caravaggio, Boy with a Basket of Fruit , ca, 1595, Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photo: Mauro Coen; © Galleria Borghese

After over a year of renovation work, the Musée Jacquemart- André has reopened with an exhibition of around forty masterpieces from Rome’s famous Borghese Gallery. An exceptional partnership between the two institutions gives the public a unique opportunity to admire in Paris an ensemble of major works by famous artists from the Renaissance and Baroque periods rarely loaned outside Italy, from Caravaggio to Rubens, along with works by Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Veronese, Antonello da Messina, and Bernini.

The Villa Borghese Pinciana, which now houses the Borghese Gallery, was built between 1607 and 1616 by the powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577–1633), a nephew of Pope Paul V (1550–1621). Drawing his inspiration from the luxurious Roman villas, Scipione wished to use the palace surrounded by gardens for exhibiting his collections of antique works and contemporary paintings and sculptures, evoking a new golden age. Possessed of great taste in art, an insatiable curiosity, and an extraordinary ability to identify the masterpieces amongst the works of his time, Scipione Borghese completed his collection by every possible means, legal or otherwise.

Borghese thus became one of the leading and most prominent collectors and patrons in the history of the art of his time, turning the Villa Borghese into a veritable museum before museums even existed. In accordance with his last wishes, all his collections and properties were passed down from one generation to the next without being dispersed for almost two hundred years, and the Borghese heirs continued to enrich the family’s heritage. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, several hundred antique sculptures were nevertheless given to Napoleon Bonaparte by his brother-in-law, Prince Camille Borghese (1775-1832); they were gradually replaced by new acquisitions. The Borghese family eventually sold the villa and its museum to the Italian State in 1902. The Borghese Gallery remains a symbol of Rome’s economic, cultural, and artistic prosperity in the modern age, and, as such, a must-see destination for visitors of the Eternal City.

The exhibition includes not only star names such as Raphael, Antonello da Messina, Parmesan, Lorenzo Lotto, Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, Rubens and Bernini, bu also lesser known names such as Gerrit van Honthorst, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Cavaliere D’Arpino, and Jacopo Bassano.