Masterpieces from the Borghese Gallery

For its first exhibition after more than one year of renovation work, the Musée Jacquemart- André will present around forty masterpieces from Rome’s famous Borghese Gallery. This exceptional partnership between the two institutions will give 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.
He 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.

Thanks to the partnership between the Musée Jacquemart-André and the Borghese Gallery—in the context of a campaign of renovation work on the museum in Rome in the autumn of 2024—, this exhibition will present a selection of exceptional works from this art collection, which is unique in the world. The public will, in particular, be able to (re)discover works by the masters of Italian art from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Raphael, Antonello da Messina, Parmesan, Lorenzo Lotto, Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, Bernini, etc.) and Nordic painters who stayed in Italy (Rubens, Gerrit van Honthorst, etc.). The exhibition will also pay tribute to painters with whom the general public are less familiar, such as Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Cavaliere D’Arpino, and Jacopo Bassano. The presentation of the works in the exhibition will shed light both on the history of the collection and the meaning of the major themes explored by the artists. The exhibition will be complemented by a catalogue, a reference work in French about the collection of ‘modern’ paintings in the Borghese Gallery. The Musée Jacquemart-André endeavours to highlight collectors who have left their mark on the history of art, like the couple Édouard André and Nélie Jacquemart.

They compiled a rich collection of Italian paintings, sculptures, and furniture from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, making the Musée Jacquemart-André one of the leading French institutions devoted to Italian art. Hence, the masterpieces collected by the Borghese family will be particularly well taken care of in this Italian museum in the heart of Paris.

 With the support of Generali, exhibition sponsor