An Expertise by Federico Zeri
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An Expertise by Federico Zeri
Federico Zeri (1921-1998)
(picture: youtube.com)
(Picture: auction.de)
An Expertise by Federico Zeri
Major art connoisseur Federico Zeri who did decease in October 1998 did write this expertise which deals with supposed works of one member of the Bruegel family, namely Abraham Brueghel, in April of 1998.
(Picture: auction.de)
(Picture: auction.de)
With it we dispose of an example that contains also references to what art connoisseurship probably might have meant to Zeri: intellectual adventure, and, perhaps, also social adventure. ›Conosco da molto tempo‹ – this subject of one earlier research of mine. It is as if Zeri was bumping into someone he knew. From earlier times, from other places. A someone that he had followed to clarify his or her identity. Here we encounter him as the detective of a still life. And this is actually a nice (somewhat romantic, but also melancholy) metaphor as to what connoisseurship might mean, if it is practiced modestly, with passion and without the ever-present commercial interest and self-opinionatedness. Perhaps being an expert, in Zeri’s case, meant having found such niche.
(For further reading we recommend: Emanuele Lugli, Connoisseurship as a system: Reflections on Federico Zeri’s Due dipinti, la filologia e un nome, in: Word & Image 24 (2008), pp. 162-175)
The Book of Expertises
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