カラバッジョ天井画のある邸宅、買い手つかず　４月に再度競売へ

【ローマＡＦＰ＝時事】ルネサンス後期のイタリア美術の巨匠カラバッジョ唯一の天井画が確認されているローマの邸宅が１８日、競売に掛けられたが、買い手がつかなかった。（写真はカラバッジョの天井画が唯一確認されている伊ローマの邸宅）
　競売の関係者、カミロ・ベルデ氏は、「入札者がいなかった」とＡＦＰに語った。
　同氏によると、邸宅は４月７日に再び競売に掛けられる。開始価格は今回の４億７１００万ユーロ（約６１１億円）よりも約２０％安く設定されるという。
　広さ約２８００平方メートルの邸宅は、ローマ中心部のベネト通りとスペイン階段の間にある。数世紀にわたり、貴族のボンコンパーニ・ルドヴィージ家が所有していた。
　邸宅は、当主のニコロ・ボンコンパーニ・ルドヴィージ公が２０１８年に死去したことで、相続争いの末に売りに出された。競売は裁判所の命令で行われた。
　カラバッジョの油彩画は１５９７年に描かれたもので、１階の廊下の天井にある。ジュピター、ネプチューン、プルートの３体の神々が中心にある天球の周りに集まる様子が描かれている。
　美術史家のクラウディオ・ストリナーティ氏はＡＦＰに対し、天井画は「最初期の作品の一つであることは確かだ。カラバッジョは宗教画ばかり描いていたため、神話が題材というのは非常に興味深い」と話した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/01/21-11:46）

A Roman villa housing the only mural by Caravaggio failed to find a bidder in an auction Tuesday sparked by a dispute between its heirs.
The sprawling Casino dell'Aurora will be put up for sale again in April, with the base price of 471 million euros ($534 million) lowered by about 20 percent, according to the notary involved in the sale.
Nobody took part in the auction, Camillo Verde told AFP, saying the next sale would take place on April 7 at 2:00pm Rome time.
The residence of the noble Ludovisi Boncompagni family for hundreds of years, the 2,800-square-metre (30,000 square feet) Casino dell'Aurora is located in central Rome between the Via Veneto and the Spanish Steps.
The auction was ordered by a Rome court following a dispute among the heirs of Prince Nicolo Ludovisi Boncompagni, the head of the family who died in 2018.
The dispute is between the prince's third and final wife, Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, a 72-year-old American former real estate broker and actor who once posed for Playboy, and the children from his first marriage.
The building is a Baroque jewel with gorgeous gardens and a valuable art collection that also includes frescoes by Guercino.
The base price has been lowered from 471 million euros to 376.8 million euros, Verde said.
Almost 35,000 people had called on the Italian government to exercise its pre-emptive right to buy the building and the Caravaggio, which alone is valued at 350 million euros, according to a petition on Change.org.
Under Italian law, the government can only do this after the sale to a private individual, and then within 60 days of the sale's completion -- and for the same price.
The oil mural by Caravaggio, whose real name was Michelangelo Merisi, dates to 1597 and is located on the ceiling in a corridor on the first floor of the palace.
It depicts Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune with the world at the centre, marked by signs of the zodiac.
It's certainly one of his earliest (works) and is very interesting because the subject is a mythological subject, and Caravaggio painted almost only sacred works, art historian Claudio Strinati told AFP.
The palace was originally an outbuilding in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, of which nothing remains today. Its name comes from a Guercino fresco depicting the goddess Aurora, or Dawn, on her chariot.