Welcome from AFC President, Cristina Del Sesto
/I am grateful to my fellow board members for entrusting me with not just the title of president but all the responsibilities that come along with it. I would like to thank Nancy Vespoli for leading us for four years and bringing in a cohort of friends who have made our trips so much fun while simultaneously supporting our mission of sending an American post-doctoral curator to the Capodimonte Museum for two years.
Following in her footsteps is my ambitious plan.
To kick off 2023, the AFC met in Washington, D.C. for the first time on January 14 and January 15. We were received on Saturday at The Phillips Collection by outgoing Director, Dorothy Kosinski, and Renato Miracco, curator of the exhibition An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis. Miracco, a native Neapolitan, gave us an informative and entertaining tour of the exhibition. We were delighted to see two major loans from Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in the show: Crossing the Appenines and Farmhouse near Naples. De Nittis (1846-1884) was just 20 when he painted them. The first King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, acquired both for the royal collection. De Nittis was one of the few artists—and arguably the best—to have documented the eruption of Vesuvius on April 26, 1872.
AFC Travelers at The Phillips Collection
Phillips Collection Director Emerita Dorothy Kosinski and exhibition curator Renato Miracco led the AFC on a special tour of the De Nittis exhibition.
Giuseppe De Nittis, Farmhouse Near Naples, 1866.
Capodimonte lent this work to the exhibition: Giuseppe De Nittis, Farmhouse Near Naples, 1865. Oil on canvas, 43 x 75 cm. Signed and dated by the artist. Inv. PS 60.
Giuseppe De Nittis, Crossing the Appenines, 1867
Capodimonte also lent this work: Giuseppe De Nittis, Crossing the Appennines, 1867. Oil on canvas, 45 x 76,5 cm. Signed and dated by the artist. Inv. PS 61.
On Sunday, AFC board member and National Gallery of Art curator, Gretchen Hirschauer, gave us a tour of Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice. It’s true Carpaccio ((1465-1525) and this exhibition had nothing to do with Naples but for the involvement of our beloved AFC board member. It is, however, a beautiful exhibition and well worth a visit. We were introduced to a little white dog which Gretchen nicknamed Fazzoletto (handkerchief) in Carpaccio’s St. Augustine in His Study, usually housed in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni of Venice but traveled for the very first time for this exhibition.
AFC TRAVELERS ON THEIR TOUR WITH NGA AND EXHIBITION CURATOR (AND AFC BOARD MEMBER) GRETCHEN HIRSCHAUER IN FRONT OF VITTORE CARPACCIO’S SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, ANOTHER MASTERWORK FROM THE SCUOLA DI SAN GIORGIO DEGLI SCHIAVONI IN VENICE FEATURED IN THE EXHIBITION. PHOTO CREDIT: TOM WOLFF.
While art fed our souls all weekend we were also fortunate enough to have eaten very well. Sette Osteria is just around the corner from the Phillips, and Fabio Trabocchi’s Bar Piccolo at Fiola Mare was a fitting setting along the Potomac River. It was no substitute for the Bay of Naples, but still.
Nearly 20 people participated, coming from Houston, London, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York City, Rhode Island, and D.C.
The next AFC trip will take place in Paris in early June for the opening of the Louvre exhibition Naples à Paris. Le Louvre invite le musée de Capodimonte. It will be at least three days of events. If you want to come, don’t wait or you’ll be too late! Email your pledge to: americanfriendsofcapoidmonte@info.com. The AFC contribution minimum to be able to participate in this trip and its exciting events is $2,500 pp, excluding lodging and airfare.
In the meantime, we debuted a robust speaking series at the end of last year and the lectures continue in 2023.
With so much going on, one might forget that the application deadline for the AFC Fellow (2023-2025) closed on January 15. The posting for the fellowship received more than 1,000 views and we are confident we have attracted yet another competitive applicant pool. We will be announcing the next AFC Fellow soon.
When the AFC was founded in 2016, the Capodimonte museum did not have any English didactics (wall text). It made the museum almost inaccessible to all but Italians and Italian-speakers. In the almost two years since Caroline began her post, she has more than doubled the amount of didactics the AFC produced. As of right now, there are over 90 bilingual wall texts in the Neapolitan painting galleries alone. And, this is the least of what Caroline has accomplished. She has been instrumental in the organization of a touring exhibition to Hong Kong, The Road to the Baroque: Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum, she has worked on the forthcoming exhibition on Capodimonte at the Louvre, and she is supporting the museum’s ongoing digitization efforts, bringing the collections catalog online. She has done her own scholarship, published essays, spoken at conferences, given VIP tours, and more. She has far exceeded our expectations and I know the Director is most pleased.
There are more than 300 people on our mailing list, but only 40 people have made contributions. It’s something to consider for 2023. Contributions are tax deductible as we are a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit. We have no overhead. No staff. Everything goes towards the support of the AFC Fellow. I’d like to thank loyal and major donors such as Vincent Buonanno, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Julie and Bart Livolsi, Nancy and Mike Vespoli, and our entire board for their tireless work, especially James Anno and Gretchen Hirschauer who are fulltime curators at major U.S. art institutions. I would like to give a special thanks to Giovanni Lombardi for his generous support of the Fellow, as well as Errico di Lorenzo, president of the Amici di Capodimonte, our sister organization. Finally, I’d like to thank Giuditta Giorgio at the Italian Embassy, Washington for her encouragement.
To have articulated a mission and have fulfilled it is incredibly rewarding.
Thanks to you all, we are able and at the ready. Andiamo!
Cristina Del Sesto
Email: americanfriendsofcapodimonte@info.com