\u201cThis acquisition, together with the recent purchase of the Ecce Homo by Antonello da Messina, is part of a broader project to strengthen the national cultural heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The previous owners of the work, who were not specified, had allowed the portrait to be exhibited to the public for an exhibit on Caravaggio at Palazzo Barberini – the noble family\u2019s historic home in central Rome – which ended in February 2025.<\/p>\n
The museum\u2019s director, Thomas Clement Salomon, told AFP at the exhibition\u2019s opening in November 2024 that the fact it was being displayed was \u201cexceptional\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has never been lent to an exhibition, it has never been seen in a museum, so it is an absolute preview,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the painting, a seated Barberini is clutching a letter in his left hand, with his right pointing forward, towards the viewer.<\/p>\n
Around 65 paintings in the world have been \u201csecurely attributed\u201d to Caravaggio, according to the ministry statement, while portraits are very rare, with only three \u201cknown and firmly accepted\u201d.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis acquisition, together with the recent purchase of the Ecce Homo by Antonello da Messina, is part of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[174479,442,498,499,500,174480,6743,3391,40492,21642,2396,501,44185,156,3273,1224,1132,28874,3586,111,139,174478,69,1118,10142,3074,95426,20842,8205,18640,3048,1361,1865,8733,34539,1299,1533,4576],"class_list":{"0":"post-323037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-587m","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-barberini","14":"tag-became","15":"tag-buys","16":"tag-caravaggio","17":"tag-collection","18":"tag-culture","19":"tag-design","20":"tag-enter","21":"tag-entertainment","22":"tag-future","23":"tag-italy","24":"tag-million","25":"tag-ministry","26":"tag-museum","27":"tag-new-zealand","28":"tag-newzealand","29":"tag-nobleman","30":"tag-nz","31":"tag-of","32":"tag-paid","33":"tag-painting","34":"tag-pope","35":"tag-portrait","36":"tag-rare","37":"tag-rome","38":"tag-said","39":"tag-that","40":"tag-today","41":"tag-urban","42":"tag-viii","43":"tag-who","44":"tag-will","45":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}