Uffizi loans treasures from Renaissance masters for a show in Shanghai

The "Masterpieces Of Self-Portraits" exhibition runs until Jan 8, 2023 at the Bund One Art Museum in Shanghai. Photo: Handout

The Uffizi Galleries in Florence has temporarily parted with some of its treasures.

The Florentine institution has loaned paintings from its collection to the Bund One Art Museum in Shanghai. The Italian authorities welcome this partnership, which marks a turning point in the country's cultural democracy.

Art fans living in Shanghai will no longer need to travel to Italy to admire self-portraits by Renaissance masters. They will simply need to head to the Bund One Art Museum to see them in Masterpieces Of Self-Portraits.

This exhibition, which runs until Jan 8, 2023, brings together some 50 paintings by artists ranging from Raphael and Rembrandt to Yayoi Kusama and Cai Guoqiang. Some of them have never made the trip to China before.

The staging of the Masterpieces Of Self-Portraits exhibition is possible thanks to a partnership between the Bund One Art Museum and the Uffizi in Florence. It is the first in a series of 10 exhibitions that the Italian museum plans to present in Shanghai over the next five years.

These include a Botticelli retrospective, scheduled for spring 2023. This initiative is part of the Italy-China Year of Culture and Tourism, announced jointly by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Consulate General of Italy in Shanghai.

The initiative aims to boost tourism in China, a sector hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. Several Shanghai museums, such as the Long Museum, the West Bund Museum and the Power Station of Art, even had to close their doors in March as part of efforts to counter the emergence of new cases in China's most populous city.

For Italy, this rapprochement between the Florence's Uffizi Galleries and the Bund One Art Museum is an opportunity to assert its rank as a major cultural power. The Florentine museum sees it as an opportunity to attract the favour of Chinese visitors, as one of its spokespeople explained to The Art Newspaper.

"Chinese tourism must return, and it will do without doubt. The Chinese love the Renaissance, and they love Florence."

Another advantage, and not the least, is that the Uffizi will pocket a significant sum thanks to this partnership, amounting to some €6mil (RM27mil), according to the trade publication. - AFP