The Mayor Luigi Brugnaro and Mariacristina Gribaudi, President of the Fondazione Musei Civici Veneziani, announce what is expected to be the most eagerly awaited Venetian exhibition event of the spring season: the great exhibition “ Vittore Carpaccio. Paintings and drawings ” which, from 18 March to 18 June, can be admired in the Doge's Apartment in Palazzo Ducale.

The great retrospective was able to materialize thanks to the collaboration between the Venetian Civic Museums and the National Gallery in Washington. The curatorship of the project was entrusted to Peter Humfrey, recognized specialist of the painter and his context, with Andrea Bellieni, curator of the Civic Museums of Venice, and Gretchen Hirschauer, curator of Italian and Spanish painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Loans generously granted by museums, churches, institutions and private collections in Europe and the United States allow works to be brought back to Venice for centuries away from the lagoon; some sent by the same artist to the ancient territories once linked to the Serenissima such as Istria and Dalmatia and never returned so far. They are essential in order to now be able to propose an itinerary in the rooms of the Ducal Apartment that documents the evolution of Carpaccio's art in the most objective and complete way. 45 paintings of religious, profane or genre themes - among them some of large dimensions - highlight the great imaginative, narrative, descriptive skills, as well as the skilful pictorial technique of the artist. Together, a large nucleus of drawings demonstrates his special ability to 'study' reality in a meticulous and detailed manner, revealing his particular interests in nature, in perspective, in the customs of his time, in the effects of light.

It should be noted that the previous monograph dedicated to the Venetian master dates back to 1963. "With this magnificent exhibition, which concludes with discoveries and new attributions, as well as extraordinarily revealing restorations, we are now able to offer the public and scholars a 'updated historical-critical re-reading of Carpaccio's painting and its evolution, from its beginnings to its late works, usually diminished by critics”, says Andrea Bellieni, Head of the Correr Museum .