In 2022, the Louvre in Paris will host an exhibition on ancient Portuguese painting, featuring 15 works from the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, a source from the French institution told Lusa on Tuesday.

The exhibition will be held between June 10 and September 10, in the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, the most visited in the world.

The exhibition, which takes place as part of the season of the crusades of Portugal and France, cultural diplomacy between the two countries, will present about 15 paintings donated by the Are Antiga National Museum (MNAA) in Lisbon through partnership.

Very rarely represented or even identified in French museums, Portuguese painting deserves wider recognition: this presentation of fifteen very good quality painted panels donated by MNAA will be a revelation to the French public, ”the Louvre text stresses. at the exhibition, sent to Lusa agency.

Commissioned by Charlotte Chastel-Rousseau, curator of the painting department of the Museum of Paris – the largest art museum in the world, located in a historical monument of Paris – the exhibition is based on the scientific collaboration of this department and the Portuguese museum.

Visitors to the Louvre “will be able to discover exquisite and wonderfully executed paintings” by artists such as Nuno Gonçalves (active 1450 – until 1492), Jorge Afonso (active 1504-1540), Cristovan de Figueiredo (active 1515-1554) and Gregorio López (active 1513-1550) promotes the museum.

From the 1930 exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris on the Portuguese art of the discovery period, and from the most recent exhibitions in France (“Sun and Shadows: Portuguese Art of the 19th Century” in Paris, at the Musée du Petit Palais, in 1987, and Rouge et Or. Trésors du Portugal Baroque “, also in the capital of Paris, at the Museum Jacquemard-André, in 2001), which”this privileged period of the Portuguese Renaissance“ did not fit, still remembers the French museum.

“Carrying out a very original synthesis of the pictorial inventions of the first Italian Renaissance and Flemish innovations imported by artists such as Jan Van Eyck, who stayed in Portugal from 1428-1429, the Portuguese school of painting took root from the mid-fifteenth century, in parallel with the enormous expansion of the Kingdom of Portugal.… Under the patronage of the kings D. Manuel I (1495-1521) and D. João III (1521-1557), who surrounded themselves with court artists and commissioned numerous altars, Portuguese painting experienced in the first half of the 16th century. a golden age, before it was overshadowed by the crisis of the Portuguese throne in 1580 and the annexation of Portugal by the Spanish crown, ”notes the Louvre as a historical basis in the text about this exhibition of Portuguese painting.

In this museum, the acquisition of some paintings, “in particular thanks to the generosity of donors, allowed us to begin sketching the history of this school with a small nucleus of four Portuguese paintings dating from the 15th-18th centuries”, the museum recalls that it contains about 38 thousand items from prehistoric times until the 21st century, exhibited on an area of ​​72,735 square meters.

The painting department also states in a document sent to Lusa that it wants to “continue to add to this collection. [de pinturas portuguesas]in accordance with the Louvre’s universal vocation and the requirement to offer the most complete panorama of European painting. “

The duration of this “dossier exhibition will also provide an opportunity to make famous the Portuguese paintings represented more widely in Franceas part of a project to identify Iberian paintings from French public collections, ”says the same source at the museum, which was visited by 9.6 million people in 2019.

The exhibition is part of the France-Portugal cruzade season program, a cultural diplomacy initiative created with the aim of deepening relations between the two countries and which will run from February to October 2022 with exhibitions, shows and other events. events curated by director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, together with Manuela Judice and Victoire Bigedine Di Rosa, at the general commission.

Established in 1884, the MNAA has held the country’s most current public collection in the fields of painting, sculpture, decorative arts – Portuguese, European and expansionist – since Middle Ages to 19th century, including the largest number of pieces classified as “national treasures”, as well as the largest collection of Portuguese furniture.

The collection includes, in various fields, some reference works of the world’s artistic heritage, namely the Panels of San Vicente by Nuno Gonçalves, a masterpiece of 15th century European painting.

It also houses the Custodia of Belém, a piece of jewelery by Gilles Vicente carved by King Manuel I from 1506, and Namban screens from the late 16th century, documenting the presence of the Portuguese in Japan.

The triptych “The Temptations of St. Anthony” by Hieronymus Bosch, “St. Augustine” by Piero della Francesca, “Conversation” by Pietra de Hoja and “St. Jerome” by Albrecht Durer are some of the most famous works from the museum.