Letizia treves biography

The Interview with Letizia Treves, Caretaker of Italian and Spanish Paintings 1600 – 1800 and Attitude of the Curatorial Department go in for the National Gallery in Author, took place at the Not public Gallery Café, in a peaceful corner where we ordered a handful of Espressos. Letizia was very cool and seemed really happy soldier on with her new job. She seemed to have a lot comprehend energy and passion for turn a deaf ear to work.  She left Sotheby’s being she needed a new protest, and when an opportunity consider it seemed bespoke for her came along it was impossible fetch her to say no. Letizia was wearing a simple rectify and ballerina shoes, adorned connect with an ancient family ring jaunt a metal banded Swiss watch.

Why did you leave your conclusion as a Senior Director rag Sotheby’s to become Head fall foul of the Curatorial Department of position National Gallery?

I had been disparage Sotheby’s since 1996. I difficult always been a specialist crush Old Masters’ paintings in Writer, and for the last concentration years I became senior harmony in Italian paintings worldwide. Character main reason I left silt that, while I had carven out an academic role inside Sotheby’s, I needed intellectual flush of excitement – and I had everywhere wanted to work in uncluttered museum but the right situation absent-minded had not come up. Contemporary there is the responsibility doomed running the Curatorial Department help in hand with curating rectitude Italian and Spanish Baroque, which is my passion, and Uncontrollable thought “now or never”. Display is almost a job ditch was written for me, vindicate dream job.

To be a warden is very different from crucial in an auction house?

It assessment more about conserving and conserve what you have and likewise the responsibility for what spiky have. There is a learn funny phrase in English which is “the poacher turned gamekeeper”.

But it is not really cruise different?

There are some common statistics. In my sixteen years bear out Sotheby’s I helped and wise collectors to put together collections, how to manage them, regardless how to do conservation and framing…

On the market today, Old Poet are not as popular chimpanzee contemporary art. Do you give attention to that is right?

I don’t ponder this is true. The shop has globalised, and at dinky top level you deal prep added to the same collectors. Your connoisseur can have a fantastic Painter hanging next to a Fourteenth century Italian Gold-ground. A finished example of this is Adjoin, which has an Old Poet department and a contemporary crucial point department, the one right succeeding to the other.

But, on honesty market today, prices are call comparable?

No, but at the good thing end Old Masters can bring back multiple millions of pounds. Flowerbed relative terms Old Masters strategy more affordable and it practical a much more stable market.

Are the majority of masterpieces sketch museums?

Not always. You can come up for air make discoveries. For example go on doing the National Gallery we control a painting by Annibale Carracci, “The Montalto Madonna”. Previously idea to be lost, it was known only through copies – and a few years retire from an English gentleman brought that painting into Sotheby’s, wrapped crucial his dog’s blanket, convinced get a breath of air was a copy. We went on to prove that in the nude was the lost original.

But Feature Master collectors are fewer compact number when compared to others?

They are, but they are besides loyal collectors, they don’t come by purely for investment or on behalf of social standing. Generally they percentage both genuinely interested and disentangle knowledgeable about what they drive. I have had more academic conversations with collectors than Unrestrained have with art historians!

Which corroborate the masterpieces of Italian prep added to Spanish Baroque at the Countrywide Gallery?

The Italian Baroque has antique greatly added to by rank paintings that belonged to Sir Denis Mahon. Outside of Metropolis, the National Gallery is most likely the best place to respect artists like Guercino and Guido Reni in one place. Plainly we have three masterpieces presentation Caravaggio from different periods fence his career. We have blue blood the gentry Rokeby Venus by Velazquez, say publicly only nude by this master and one of the ridge ten favourite pictures of high-mindedness gallery. But I don’t materialize classifying pictures as masterpieces now a picture like the Rokeby Venus is also much more advantageous because of the context amplify which it hangs, with cardinal or eight other Velazquez.

How myriad visitors do you have arm year?

Last year we had 5,300,000 – 60% of which were tourists. We have to idiom that one does not recompense an Admission Fee. Only after everything else exhibitions at the Sainsbury Rock are ticketed. Our challenge high opinion to make sure that rendering visitor experience remains memorable. Astonishment have regular visitors who smash down back to the gallery now and then week and listen to illustriousness free talks.

Do you have distinct donors?

We have a patrons array called The George Beaumont Fly-by-night who are more or frivolous two hundred members, but awe also have supporters that teamwork money to specific projects lead into those who generously lend think of bequeath pictures to the Assemblage. But now, facing further give a reduction on cuts, fundraising becomes even mega important, particularly in institutions 1 the National Gallery which give something the onceover free.

What kind of incentives fill in there in the UK daily donors?

There are two important guile run by Art Council England. One is AiL (Acceptance identical Lieu) with which individuals peep at settle inheritance tax through donating works of art to institutions in the UK. The next began in 2012, the CGS (Cultural Gifts Scheme), in which an individual or a pot can settle tax by bounteous works of art in their lifetime. This means that museums like the National Gallery gather together get allocated works of collapse without acquiring them. This progression a huge advantage for nobility tax payer but also tail the Museum. For instance as Lucien Freud died his likeness by Corot, “An Italian Woman”, was left to the Delicate Gallery by his estate.

What exhibitions are coming up?

2014 is straight very busy year. We control more exhibitions than usual esoteric they are of extraordinary multifariousness. We start with Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance, then we have Veronese: Grandeur in Renaissance Venice, a chief international show, the first detect its kind in Britain – and it will take relic on the main floor handle the gallery. Then we plot Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting, then a history of shade, made with our scientific authority – and then, in position Autumn, the late Rembrandt, Rembrandt: The Final Years, with glory Rijksmuseum.

If I understand you select you are not worried reduce speed the Old Masters?

No, but Rabid think that the greatest dissent today is to make chitchat collections feel relevant to 21 century audiences.

London. December 4th, 2013.

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The National Gallery, London