Information from the curators, 18 September 2015
Among the aims of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza’s exhibition programme is the study and dissemination of the most celebrated works in its collection. These works, and the collections with which they are associated, have provided the bases for our temporary exhibitions. Caravaggio’s canvas of Saint Catherine of Alexandria is undoubtedly one of the Museum’s most emblematic paintings and has now been selected as the focus point for an exhibition entitled Caravaggio and the Painters of the North. It will aim to present the visiting public with a rigorous analysis that reflects the influence and consequences that this Italian master had on artists from northern Europe.
From the press release, 23 May 2016
The exhibition will include 53 paintings, twelve of them by Caravaggio, to offer a survey of Caravaggio’s career from his Roman period to the moving dark paintings of his final years, shown alongside a selection of works by his most important followers in Holland (Dirk van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst and Hendrick Ter Brugghen), Flanders (Nicolas Régnier and Louis Finson) and France (Simon Vouet, Claude Vignon and Valentin de Boulogne).
Caravaggio and the Painters of the North transports visitors to the era of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and the decades following his death, a period particularly rich in masterpieces of painting and when his fame was still at its height. The exhibition opens with two galleries devoted to works by Caravaggio executed during his time in Rome. The following galleries show works by painters from north of the Alps who saw Caravaggio’s works at first hand. The last two galleries are devoted to the work of Caravaggio and his foreign followers in Naples and southern Italy.