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After half a millennium art can still reserve nice surprises. A very rare etching by the famous Flemish artist Pieter Paul Rubens has been retrieved in Rome. Traces of the work had been lost since 1836 when in his book “The classical prints” professor Giulio Ferrario referred to a study of the artist based on Leonardo da Vinci’s painting entitled The Last Supper. Since that moment critics and experts had looked for it without results, until a few days ago when this precious work of art was retrieved thanks to a Roman psychologist. Gilberto Di Benedetto, who owned an anonymous print inherited by his father 12 years ago, decided to show it to professor Andrea De Liberis and professor Alfredo Pasolino with the intention of selling it to finance a study on electro-iontophoresis. This led to the surprising discovery: Gilberto Di Benedetto discovered that he owned a precious etching and had a fortune in his hands. The market quotation of Rubens’s etchings is high, but not stratospheric; perhaps he is one of the few old master’s even able to get hammer prices similar to those of contemporary art.
Of course, the evaluation carried out by De Liberis and Pasolino, as important as it may be, is not enough. Indeed, for a master like Rubens, there are very few experts in the world qualified to establish the authenticity of his unpublished works, as pointed out by the superintendent of the Roman museum Pole Claudio Strinati. Therefore, Gilberto Di Benedetto will have to wait a little longer for the thorough assessment of recognised experts of worldwide fame before knowing the value of his etching.
“Looking at the work I was immediately impressed. It was the work that for many years had been looked for” – explained Andrea De Liberis – “As soon as I saw the etching I realised that for centuries they had been looking for this marvellous etching which I couldn’t find anywhere, in no market, neither Italian, nor foreign. It is a very rare work. When Rubens came to Italy he stayed in Milan and worked on his etchings, he realised a few, this is one of them, made directly by him. Indeed, in the plate there is the provenance of the work and the writing in Italian. It is a revisitation, not a copy, but a reinterpretation of Leonardo’s Last Supper which Rubens had seen in Milan and which, when he arrived in Rome, he wanted to reproduce with an etching on copper plate. This etching was untraceable already in the Nineteenth century. It was known that Rubens had realised it but having looked for it for so long, and unsuccessfully, led to believe that it had gone lost”.
Therefore, this work retrieved in Rome is a rarity and it is an exceptional piece of evidence of the rare etchings realised directly by Rubens which has a significant artistic and economic value.
The etching is a horizontal work printed on two sheets that Gilberto Di Benedetto’s father bought from an aristocratic, probably French family, that lived in high Savoy. It had been unobserved for twelve years, with the risk of remaining for who knows how long in obscurity.
“It is very difficult to give a value to a work like this, more unique than rare” – added Andrea De Liberis – “Value, for who loves rare works, is historical. We are talking about a work by Rubens, one of the greatest Flemish painters, a piece of evidence, an interpretation made by Rubens of another great master like Leonardo Da Vinci, therefore we are talking about two huge characters of the history of art. I believe it is right to promote this work under the aspect of cultural heritage. That means to make it renowned, because it is always important and right that everyone can see it and analyse it. Until now it has not even been revealed to the great encyclopaedias, and this is why this retrieval is positive for the history of art first of all, but it is a discovery that will bring benefits to Rubens’s historiography, too. I am happy that I have analysed this work and discovered it” – concluded the academic – “In many years of journeys in all the European markets I have never seen this work, finding it in Rome has made me particularly happy”.
“An exceptional retrieval” even for Alfredo Pasolino, renowned critic of international art. “It was thought that the work had gone lost and instead it has reappeared unexpectedly, moreover signed in Italian” – claimed the critic called to make a detailed report on the work – “and all the world should know about it”.
While the owner Gilberto Di Benedetto confessed: “It will be painful to part with it. I am also a painter and I am not happy to part with such a prestigious work, but I have to do it to finance an equally important study that I am carrying out on the medicine of pain. “It is a promise I made to my father and that I want to carry through to honour his memory”.
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