At the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the famous Italian painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri — Gercino's "Madonna and Child" was exhibited for the first time. This was reported by Zamin.uz.
This artwork can be viewed in the museum's main building until September 14, 2025. According to TASS agency, the fate of the canvas was unknown for nearly a century.
Currently, it is being exhibited as part of the "New Treasures of the Pushkin Museum" project. According to the museum director Olga Galaktionova, Gercino's work will conclude the first five exhibitions of the project and will later be transferred to the main exposition.
Historical sources indicate that the painting previously belonged to Empress Josephine, the wife of Emperor Napoleon. She purchased the artwork from the antique dealer Ludovico Varisco.
Later, the artwork passed to her daughter Hortense. In 1820, Emperor Alexander I brought it to Russia for the Hermitage collection.
In 1924, when Western European paintings were transferred from the Hermitage to the current Pushkin Museum, Gercino's work was sent not to the museum but to the central storage of the State Museum fund. In the 1980s, the canvas was in the possession of the artist Ilya Glazunov and was later returned to the museum by his daughter Vera Glazunova.
It is also worth noting that recently an English woman agreed to return Antonio Solario's 16th-century "Madonna and Child," which she had kept for over 50 years, to an Italian museum. This event once again demonstrated the importance of international cooperation in the preservation and distribution of artworks.
