Veronese: the Cuccina Cycle. The restored masterpiece
Interactive multimedia and augmented reality exhibits developed by students from the Chair of Media Design at Technische Universität Dresden encourage visitors to make further discoveries.
The project was made possible thanks to generous support from three foundations – the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, the Schoof’sche Stiftung and the Hirmer Stiftung Dresden – and funding from federal sources (“Invest Ost” programme for national cultural institutions in eastern Germany) and the state of Saxony.
A catalogue to accompany the exhibition is being published by Sandstein Verlag, vividly presenting the Cycle and its restoration with numerous illustrations. Published by Christine Follmann, Marlies Giebe and Andreas Henning for Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, approx. 200 pages, roughly 170 illustrations, most in colour, €24.00. ISBN 978-3-95498-354-4.
Marion Ackermann, Director General of the SKD: “The year 2018 has been declared the European Year of Cultural Heritage. And it is this very year that the SKD will have completed its work on the Cuccina Cycle, after four years of restoration, making this major work by the Venetian painter Veronese accessible to the public once again. Through this project, the SKD is not only documenting its task of preserving the artistic treasures with which it has been entrusted for modern and future viewers, but also demonstrating its role as a scientific institution and a dynamic conveyor of knowledge. Without considerable support from our funders and sponsors, this project would not have been imaginable. My thanks thus go to those who placed their trust in us and have stood by our side for all these years as ever-reliable partners.”
Stephan Koja, Director of Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and the pre-1800 Skulpturensammlung: “The restoration of the Cuccina Cycle is a milestone on the road to the Sempergalerie re-opening in the summer of 2019. It is fuelling excited anticipation of the moment when we will be able to see these four large-format works alongside masterpieces by other great Venetian artists of the 16th century, such as Titian and Tintoretto, in our fully refurbished, modernised building. Today, the Cuccina Cycle, one of the works that has been on constant display at the Gemäldegalerie since it arrived in Dresden in 1746, is being returned to the public sphere. We are thus celebrating the completion of an extremely complex restoration requiring a great deal of research, which would not have been possible without the generous support of our funders and sponsors.”
The exhibition is curated by Christine Follmann, Marlies Giebe and Andreas Henning.
The four large-format paintings were restored between 2013 and 2017 by six freelance restorers: Evelyn Adler and Jan Sacher (“Adoration of the Magi” and “Christ Bearing the Cross”), Tobias Lange and Anke Stenzel (“Wedding at Cana”) and Kathrin Jacob and Sabine Posselt (“The Madonna and the Cuccina Family”). The gilded baroque gallery frames, totalling 53 metres of moulding, were restored during the same period by the freelance restorers Timo Fregin, Karen Gäbler, Theresa Herrmann, Jörg Kestel, Tania Korntheuer-Wardak and Stephan Thürmer.
Cooperation partners:
Archaeometry laboratory at the Academy of Fine Arts, Dresden
Art Technology faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts, Dresden
Chair of Media Design at the TU Dresden Computer Science Institute
Italian Centre at TU Dresden
National Gallery Scientific Department, London
Associazione Culturale Ispirazione and Italiana Strategie