Unidentified authorships in perspective

There are around 880 works in the MNBA's Foreign Painting Center. Of these, we came across 204 paintings of unidentified authorship.

Most of them are paintings related to historical and mythological-religious themes, but there are also landscapes and portraits, as well as genre scenes and still lifes, found in smaller numbers.

In the Foreign Painting Nucleus, many of these works were acquired by the Academy of Fine Arts through Joaquim Lebreton, head of the so-called "French Artistic Mission", or brought by the then Prince Regent D. João, when he came to Brazil in 1808.

The copies acquired in the context of the 19th century, when the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts was founded in Brazil, were fundamental for the study and improvement of the students.

Important directors of the institution, such as Felix Émile-Taunay and Araújo Porto-Alegre, maintained the tradition brought by Lebreton of acquiring copies of European masters for painting studies.

It tells a scene from Greek mythology. In one version of the myth, Endymion is rewarded by Zeus with eternal sleep, since the young man's great dream was to remain beautiful forever. Diana is enchanted by the boy's beauty and visits him every night to contemplate his beauty.

Still in the context of acquisitions of works from the Portuguese Crown, "Alegoria à virtude" belongs to the José Estevão Grondona Collection.

Grondona foi um empresário e publicista bastante conhecido no cenário político brasileiro das primeiras décadas do século XIX. Muda-se para o Rio de Janeiro em 1818, e vende algumas obras, de pequenas dimensões, à Coroa.

In the context of acquisitions made in the first half of the 20th century, one can highlight works transferred to the MNBA from the then Palácio do Catete - now Museu da República - in 1948, such as the painting entitled Interior and Venice donated by Luiz de Rezende in 1909.

It depicts daily life in a tavern, where patrons eat and drink while chatting. It is a copy of the original work by David Teniers (1610-1690), a Flemish artist of the Baroque style.

In the 20th century, the donation of Ambassador Gemina Ferreira de Mello Franco, made in 1983, stands out.

It alludes to the Baroque tradition and concerns a 17th-century Jesuit mission to the northern portion of what was then Portuguese America, with the "Paiacu" indigenous people.

There are also works that, although of unknown provenance, are very significant in terms of the expressions of the artistic school to which they belong, such as Our Lady of the Conception and Portrait of a woman with a book in her hand.

Religious painting of the Cuzco school from the 16th to the 18th centuries, which mixes the European artistic tradition with Andean cultural expressions, important to know more about the artistic manifestations of the then "Spanish America".

An everyday scene in which we can reflect, for example, on what was the conception of portraiture in an era before the emergence of photographs.

Through this gentle approach, we present some of the MNBA's valuable collection of foreign painting. This exhibition is an invitation for the viewer to make their own connections with the works, without the knowledge of an author to support the reading.