The first exhibition of Raphael Santi in Moscow opened its doors in September 2016 due to the auspices of the collaboration of the Uffizi Gallery with the Pushkin State Museum. The popularity of Raphael’s works led to an astounding number of people and gigantic line of people waited for hours at the gate, hoping to see the art works. As reported by the museum press service more than 200,000 people attended the exhibition in total. All online tickets were sold out within the first week. In order to reduce the queues and to avoid overcrowding, the museum was forced to establish daily limits for the number of tickets that could be sold as well as limit the length of time visitors were allowed to enjoy the exhibition.
The exhibition consisted only of 3 of Raphael’s graphics and of 8 paintings borrowed not only from the Uffizi Gallery but also from the National Gallery of the Marches in Urbino, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, and Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo in Brescia. The exhibition was accompanied by a lecture program given by the major Russian experts on Italian Culture, as well as Italian specialists. The exposition was headed by a joint collaboration between Russian and Italian curators. The Scientific Supervisor was the Uffizi Gallery’s Director, Eike Schmidt. The exhibition was held under the direct patronage of the Italian Consulate in Moscow and of the Consul, Cesare Maria Ragaglini, personally. The Russian exhibition sponsors were State corporations Rosneft and VTB Bank. The Italian Consulate and MIBACT provided Italy’s sponsorship. The role of sponsors is crucial for an organization of an international exhibition as they help to cover costs for insurance and transportation. Such financial support is essential, given that the price to insure just one of the Raphael masterpieces exceeded 100 million euros.
Two aspects of the 2016 Raphael exhibition in Russia make it unprecedented: Not only was this exhibition the first time that so many of Raphael’s works have been seen in Russia, but some of the paintings that were on display had never left Italy before. A number of Raphael’s individual paintings have been exhibited in Russia in the past, but these were only single works. According to the Italian consul in Moscow the 2016 exhibition was unique not only for Russia, but for the whole international community. The Director of the Pushkin Museum, Marina Loshak, stated that the initiative for the cooperation was made by the Italian side.
Naturally, there is a special interest in Russia in Italian Culture as a bastion of the Arts. In fact, Moscow gave the name “Italian September” to September, 2016, to emphasize the importance of Italian cultural contributions. In September, 2016, three important cultural events took place in Russia’s art scene. First came the tour by the La Scala Theatre Orchestra at the Bolshoi Theatre. Second, the exhibition “Piranesi Masterpieces from Russian and Foreign Collections” opened. And finally, the major cultural event of September was the aforementioned “Raphael and the Poetry of a Face.”
Recently a tremendous public interest in Visual Arts in Russia has been recorded, especially in Traditional Art. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, in possession of the one of the greatest collection of the foreign Art in Russia, is unique for its collaboration with major Museums in Europe and Asia. However, as can be seen from the discussion above, the Art events currently most in demand are Italian. Russian cooperation with Italian museums of fine arts could easily be tracked. The Italy-Russia year of cultural exchange began in 2011, during which time multiple exhibitions of Italian Art were hosted by the Pushkin State Museum. In 2012, the interest of the public was sparked by the exhibition of Lorenzo Lotto from the collections of museums in Italy. The following year it was the exhibition of 11 paintings of Titian; that exhibit trounced the record of 340 000 visitors for a 3 month period. Then in 2014, there was a collaboration between Russia and the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. In 2015, Fondazione Longhi brought an exhibition of Caravaggio’s paintings from Florence. This year, 2016, was the year of Raphael. In 2017 two exhibitions have been planned — one showing Giorgio Morandi, and the second highlighting Italian painters of the 1920s and 1930s. Finally 2018 is reserved for an exhibition of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
Just this past summer of 2016, an agreement of cooperation between the Pushkin State Museum and Uffizi Gallery was signed, offering grounds to anticipate that these abovementioned events are only the start of jointly collaborated art exhibitions. “There are great opportunities to be faced in connection with the signing of this agreement. We can organize joint research projects of international level. The first exhibition will be Raphael’s, and I’m sure it will be a landmark event for the whole world,” said the Director of the Uffizi gallery, Eike Schmidt.
