Armed escort to deliver exhibition dedicated to Raffaello Sanzio from Petersburg to Kazan
As Realnoe Vremya found out, this autumn Kazan citizens will see an exhibition dedicated to the 500th anniversary since the death of great Italian Renaissance Raffaello Sanzio. The exposition includes over a hundred compositions of Russian and foreign art from a collection of the Museum of Art Academy illustrating key stages of the art of one of the biggest masters of the High Renaissance.
The Saint Petersburg Imperial Art Academy had a tradition when the best students were delegated abroad to “improve their art skills.” They were tasked with making copies of compositions of outstanding artists. It is works of renowned Russian artists Anton Losenko, Fyodor Bruni, Pyotr Basin, Karl Bryullov became the pillar of the exposition.
The Tatarstan Museum of Fine Arts will spend over 1.7 million rubles to transport exhibits of the Raffaello. Versions exhibition. The exposition will be delivered with an armed escort. The contract applies to two transportations — from the Saint Petersburg Research Museum in the Russian Academy of Arts to Kazan and back. 54 art pieces will be exhibited in the Tatarstan capital at once, while Kazan citizens will be able to see them from September to March. Read more in Realnoe Vremya’s report.
Isothermal vans and armed security
The exhibits will be transported to the republic’s main museum of fine arts from 14 to 28 September. The journey back to Saint Petersburg is preliminarily scheduled for 17-29 March 2024. As for the objects themselves, it is mainly paintings, graphic paintings, plaster models as well as models of architecture elements. The biggest size of paintings will be 286x220 centimetres while the smallest are 31.1x34.7 centimetres. As for sculptures, the biggest of them are 50х46х27 centimetres. The total insurance value of all compositions is 272.3 million rubles.
The contractor will have to not only deliver the exhibition in a perfect condition but also provide its assembly and disassembly, packing and unpacking as well as placement in museum corridors.
According to the client’s requirements, the exhibits will be transported by a transport company in a special all-metal isothermal van equipped with:
- pneumatic suspension of all the wheels;
- tail lift;
- climate control to keep a permanent temperature in the cabin at no lower than+21°C and no higher than +22°C;
- a fastening system inside the van at least at three levels;
- panels for fixed fastening of transported boxes and exhibits;
- a GPS/GLONASS to track the freight in real time mode;
- a sleeping place for a second driver.
As for security, every car will be accompanied by at least two armed people. Also, all the vans are sealed, while the boxes with all these objects will be placed in accordance with special instructions.
Murmansk and Saint Petersburg already hosted the exhibition
The Raffaello. Versions is dedicated to Raffaello Sanzio’s 500th anniversary since his death (1483-1520). It includes Russian and foreign art compositions from a collection of the Museum of the Arts Academy. As the organisation itself notes, the exhibits illustrate key stage of art of one of the greatest masters of the High Renaissance.
The description to the exhibition reads that the best students of the Imperial Arts Academy travelled abroad to improve their skills and study during Peter I’s era. The Academy Council gave them tasks of making copies of specific compositions of outstanding foreign artists. The works that will be presented on the exhibition were created by such Russian authors as Fyodor Bruni, Alexey Markov, Vsevolok Voinov. Moreover, some of these paintings have tactile copies — sculptures.
The exhibition was already held in Murmansk and Saint Petersburg where the replica of the Sistine Madonna by Markov (1834-1836) a copy of Bruni’s brush, a would-be rector of the academy, had a special place among all the works. The fresco Triumph of Galatea became a sample of the latter. Besides the works of these masters, visitors of the exhibition could also see copies of compositions of Raffaello created by Mikhailov, Vasilyev and other 19th-century artists.
