The Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini by Baroque master Caravaggio that has long been privately owned and was only loaned out for public display once has been acquired by the Italian state for 30 million euro ($35 million). This is the outcome of more than a year of negotiations between the Ministry of Culture and the anonymous owners, at an eye-watering

Painted around 1599, the portrait captured Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini when he was 30 years old and an up-and-coming cleric of the Apostolic Chamber. His uncle Francesco’s enormous success in business had elevated the Barberini family from minor Florentine nobility to major players in Rome, complete with a panoply of bought-and-paid-for titles and offices from the Catholic Church. He managed to evade the Curia’s rules against running a business while holding ecclesiastical position, and his heirs, including his nephew, did the same. That ensured Maffeo had endless funds to support his rapid rise in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, culminating in his election to the papacy in 1623 as Pope Urban VIII.

The portrait was in the Barberini family collection for more than 300 years, until it was sold in around 1935 when financial distress drove the family to sell much of its unparalleled collection. It was bought by a private collection in Florence and remained there, unseen and unpublished, for decades. It was published for the first time as an autograph work of Caravaggio’s by art historian Roberto Longhi in 1963. The owners kept it entirely behind closed doors for another 60 years after that.

The portrait was finally shown to the public for the first time in 2024 when the owners loaned it to the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica (National Galleries of Ancient Art) in Rome for a special exhibition dedicated to the work. The museum is housed in the Palazzo Barberini, the grand urban palace designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Maffeo after his elevation to the Throne of Peter, so this exhibition was a homecoming for the portrait. More than 450,000 visitors came to see it in the months it was on display.

Now the Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini will be making another voyage home and this time it’s staying for good. The work will be assigned to the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica to become part of the permanent collections of Palazzo Barberini.

Within the limited corpus of works securely attributed to Caravaggio—around sixty-five paintings worldwide—portraits constitute an extremely rare category: only three are known and universally accepted. The Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini therefore represents an exceptional example of the Lombard master’s portraiture and a fundamental piece for understanding the evolution of his pictorial language between the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries.

Caravaggio is today one of the most studied and admired artists in the world, yet the number of securely attributed works remains extremely limited, and the appearance on the market of paintings confidently attributed to him is an exceedingly rare event. For this reason, the entry of the Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini into Italy’s public collections represents a result of great importance both from a scholarly perspective and in terms of cultural policy, ensuring that a masterpiece by Caravaggio becomes part of the national heritage and further strengthens opportunities for research, knowledge and public enjoyment of the artist’s work.

Rijksmuseum researchers have identified a painting as the work of Rembrandt van Rijn. Analysis of the wood panel, style, changes made to the details while the work was being painted, the signature applied while the painting was still wet and the overall high quality confirm that it was an autograph work by Rembrandt himself, painted when he was 27 years old and had just moved to Amsterdam.

Vision of Zacharias in the Temple (1633) is a moody depiction of the account in the Gospel of Luke of the high priest Zachariah learning his “barren” elderly wife Elizabeth will bear a son, the future John the Baptist. The announcing angel, Gabriel, is not visible in the painting. He is represented only as a glow of light in the upper right corner of the panel, a novel approach at a time when angels were usually depicted as humans with wings. Zachariah is captured in the midst of performing his temple duties — reading scripture in front of a smoking censer of burning incense  — caught very much unawares by this announcement. His expression conveys his surprise and incredulity, an attitude that plays a large role in the rest of the story as Gabriel strikes him dumb for his disbelief and he remains mute through the conception and nine months of pregnancy, only regaining the ability to speak after he writes that he agrees with Elizabeth that their newborn son should be named John.

A label on the back of the panel from 1898 notes that it was exhibited in September and October of that year as an authentic Rembrandt. Decades later in 1960, Rembrandt specialists rejected the attribution and the work fell into obscurity. It was bought by a private collector in 1961 and no scholars were permitted to study it until two years ago when the current owner contacted the Rijksmuseum.

For the first time in 65 years, Vision of Zacharias in the Temple was given a rigorous examination, this time with modern imaging technology and, most importantly, with a vastly greater depth of knowledge about Rembrandt’s techniques and materials thanks to Operation Night Watch, the museum’s ambitious research and conservation project for the

This two-year study has revealed that all the paints used for the Vision of Zacharias in the Temple are found in other Rembrandt van Rijn works from the same period. The painting technique and the build-up of paint layers are also comparable to other early works by Rembrandt. Macro-XRF scans and visual inspection additionally revealed compositional changes that support the authenticity of the work. Research into the signature shows that it is original, and dendrochronological analysis of the wooden panel confirms that the date of 1633 on the painting is correct.

The painting is now on long-term loan to the Rijksmuseum and will go on public display on March 4th.

A luxurious silk and leather shoe believed to have been worn by King James II is going on display at the Killerton estate in Devon, home to the National Trust’s largest collection of historic fashion numbering more than 22,000 pieces.

The slipper dates to the late 17th century and is made from fine-grained leather in a deep red color and gold silk brocade. The leather lines the inner sole and the broad block heels. The silk upper is decorated with a floral pattern woven in a blue-green thread. The colors have faded over the centuries, and would originally have been bright yellow and green. It was stitched to the sole with white thread. These open-backed shoes (mules) were typically worn indoors.

Research suggests the slipper may have been left as a royal gift during King James II’s stay in Coventry. During his visit, he was honoured with a banquet at the Guildhall and lodged nearby in what later became Palace Yard, a site destroyed during the Coventry Blitz.

It was customary for royal guests to leave gifts, often embroidered gloves. In this case, a pair of silk slippers may have been given. Only one has surfaced to date.

There is no incontrovertible evidence of a royal provenance. The slipper previously belonged to costume collector Paulise de Bush who bequeathed her entire collection to the National Trust after her death in 1975. A museum tag from the de Bush collection references the James II Coventry history, but does not document when or where Pauline de Bush acquired the slipper. The Trust is currently researching the slipper’s history, hoping to confirm that it was worn by James II.

This year’s History off the Hanger exhibition at Killerton focuses on pieces featured in the newly-published National Trust book 100 Things to Wear. The slipper is one of 10 pieces from the vast Killerton collection to appear in the book. The exhibition will also give visitors a glance behind the curtain to reveal how Killerton’s conservators preserve the objects in the collection.

The gilded throne in the Royal Palace of Naples has returned to the Throne Room after a 16-month absence for restoration. The cleaning, repair and regilding has made its decoration legible again, and new research has discovered that it was commissioned by the Bourbon kings of Naples as long believed, but rather by the House of Savoy, kings of Italy. It is also a little younger than previously known.

The throne went all the way up north to be restored by the experts at the “La Venaria Reale” Conservation and Restoration Center (CNR) in Turin. They have specific experience in throne restoration, so they followed the same protocol, applies the same analyses and technologies they used to restore, for example, the throne of the Quirinal Palace in Rome. The team took complete digital X-rays of the throne to get detailed information on its construction. They then revived the gilding with lasers. The precision of laser technology allowed conservators to remove past alterations and substances that had oxidized, causing the original gold layer to look dark and dingy without resorting to harsh solvents and chemicals. It also preserved two different layers of gilding that had been applied in the past.

After the cleaning, conservators consolidated areas where the materials were loose. The structure of the chair was made of soft conifer wood, with decorative accents in poplar and linden wood. They were in poor condition and areas of loss needed to be shored up with a gesso and glue mixture before regilding.

Unfortunately the fabric in the seat, backrest and footrest were too damaged to repair. They were replaced by contemporary textiles of the same kind and color. The braided tassel fringe was also largely in unsavable condition. The few braid sections that were in useable condition were carefully cleaned and reattached. The rest were replaced by a company that specializes in reproducing historic trim. The new braided trim was sewn to the fabric one braid at a time as it was done originally.

The textiles in the Throne Room — the carpet is rests on, the covering of the dais, the curtains, valances and canopy — all needed extensive repair and some replacements as well. The palace’s restorers worked directly in the Throne Room in public view for three months to make the space ready for the return of the throne.

While the throne was undergoing conservation, art historians at the Royal Palace of Naples searched the archives and discovered that the catalogue entry that listed the throne as a Bourbon work commissioned between 1845 and 1850, was inaccurate. It was in fact commissioned by the Savoy family in 1874 after the Unification of Italy.