EXHIBITION
The Alana Collection
Masterpieces of Italian Painting
In autumn 2019, the Musée Jacquemart-André will be focusing on the Alana Collection, one of the most precious and little-known private collections of Renaissance art in the world, which is currently located in the United States. Echoing its exceptional collection of Italian art, the Musée Jacquemart-André will hold an exhibition of more than seventy-five masterpieces by the greatest Italian masters, such as Lorenzo Monaco, Fra Angelico, Uccello, Lippi, Bellini, Carpaccio, Tintoretto, Veronese, Bronzino, and Gentileschi. This exhibition will give visitors a unique chance to admire for the first time pictures, sculptures, and objets d’art that have never been exhibited to the general public.
In the tradition of all the greatest American collections, the Alana Collection is the fruit of a passion for art and an intensive selection process, adopted over several decades by Alvaro Saieh and Ana Guzmán; the combination of the couple’s forenames make up the name of the Alana Collection. Over the years, their passion has been transformed into a veritable fascination with Gothic art and the Italian Renaissance and has gradually led them to focus on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings.
These masterpieces have been exceptionally loaned to the Musée Jacquemart-André due to the two collectors’ passion for this period of art. The exhibited works attest to the enduring taste for the Italian Renaissance, considered as a founding stone of Western civilisation. They provide a comprehensive overview of one of the greatest collections of private art, from thirteenth-century painting to Caravaggesque works.
The team
Curatorship
Carlo Falciani, a graduate of the University of Florence, teaches Art History at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. He has been a fellow at the Villa i Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington. He has published (through Olschki) a monograph on Rosso Fiorentino and the Pontormo catalogue, disegni degli Uffizi, as well as several essays on 16th century
painting in Florence, Venice and France. He was the curator of the exhibitions: Bronzino, pittore e poeta alla corte dei Medici, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi 2010-2011; Pontormo e Rosso, divergenti vie della maniera, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi 2014; Il Cinquecento a Firenze, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, 2017-2018. He has also been curator for the exhibitions Florence, portraits à la cour des Médicis, Paris, Jacquemart-André Museum 2015-2016; and Vasari per Bindo Altoviti, it Cristo portacroce, Rome, Galleria Corsini 2019.
Pierre Curie is chief curator of heritage. Specialist of Italian and Spanish painting of the XVIIth century, he has also worked on the French painting of the XIXth century at the Musée du Petit Palais, where he started his career. Then in charge of the painting at the General Inventory, he has co-authored and led the Vocabulaire typologique et technique de la peinture et du dessin (published in 2009). Appointed head of the painting sector of the restoration department for the Centre de recherche et de restauration des Musées de France in 2007, he coordinated and followed some major restorations of paintings of national museums (Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt, Poussin...). Currently director of the Revue de l’Art, Pierre Curie is curator of the Musée Jacquemart-André since January 2016.
Production and realisation
Milly Passigli, Director delegate of programming, Agnès Wolff, Director of Cultural Production, Eléonore Lacaille, Exhibition Manager at the musée Jacquemart-André, Amélie Carriere, Exhibition Registrar at the musée Jacquemart-André, Aude Chaufourier, Project Manager and Livia Lérès and Bérangère Renard for iconography at Culturespaces.
Scenography
Hubert le Gall is a French designer, scenographer, artist, and contemporary art sculptor. Since 2000, he has been creating original scenographies for numerous exhibitions, including the Musée Jacquemart-André with Rembrandt intime (2016), De Zurbarán à Rothko, la collection Alicia Koplowitz (2017), Le jardin secret des Hansen, la collection Ordrupgaard (2017), Mary Cassatt, une impressionniste américaine à Paris (2018), Caravage. Amis et Ennemis (2018) and Hammershøi, le maître de la peinture danoise (2019).
Partners
