A newly restored work by Artemisia Gentileschi, never before seen in public, is set to go on show at the John Paul Getty Museum in California, according to ANSA.
Among the ultramodern pavilions of the J.
Paul Getty Museum, on the Santa Monica hills, comes an unpublished piece of Italian art history.
From June 10 to September 14, the museum is hosting 'Artemisia's Strong Women: Rescuing a Masterpiece', an exhibition dedicated to Artemisia Gentileschi to celebrate the end of a complex restoration of a never-before-seen work by the Baroque painter.
It is the painting 'Hercules and Omphale', which depicts the hero of Greek mythology enslaved by the queen of Lydia (Omphale, precisely), forced to perform women's work (here he appears with a spindle in his hand) as punishment for having killed the young Iphitus.
The canvas was torn apart by the devastating explosion in August 2020 at the port of Beirut, which caused more than 200 deaths and extensive material damage, including to the historic Sursock Palace, which housed the painting.
Soon after, an article by Lebanese art historian Gregory Buchakjian lamented the grave losses to the city's cultural heritage, attributing this piece from the palace's collection to Gentileschi.
The work was in desperate condition, with holes and tears caused by glass, plaster and other debris.
It arrived at the Getty in 2022.
"In my more than 30-year career as a paintings conservator, this is some of the most severe damage I have ever seen and it has been one of the most challenging, but also most rewarding, projects I have worked on," says Getty chief conservator Ulrich Birkmaier, who worked with his Roman colleague Matteo Rossi Doria to re-cover the back of the canvas.
After removing the debris from the explosion, Birkmaier removed the varnish and old restorations, restoring the painting to its original color palette, and continued to reconstruct the lost paintwork.
"It was a bit like assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle: little by little the painting came back to life," he says.
"The discovery of Gentileschi's Hercules and Omphale in Beirut was a momentous event for art historians around the world," says Timothy Potts, director of the Getty Museum, who continues: "We are grateful to the Sursock Palace for entrusting us with the task of restoring this masterpiece to its former glory and displaying it in the museum's galleries, alongside Gentileschi's other depictions of strong women." "We believe Hercules and Omphale was painted in the 1630s in Naples, where Artemisia moved in 1630 and lived for the rest of her life [she died there between 1654 and 1656, Ed.]," says Davide Gasparotto, senior curator of paintings at the Getty Museum.
After Los Angeles, the canvas will travel to the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio until the spring. It will then return to the Getty on long-term loan before returning home to the Sursock Palace in Beirut.
