News: Caravaggio in Serbia

Serbia isn’t the first place one would think to find a work by famed, Italian, Renaissance artist Caravaggio, let alone two. But nonetheless, in the Pavle Beljanski Memorial Collection in Novi Sad, there exists two masterpieces which the collection’s namesake claim are works by Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio.
 
Pavle Beljanski was a great, Serbian art collector who donated his collection of paintings, sculptures and tapestries to the people of his country in 1957. He continued to add works of art to this significant collection until the end of his life, which today consists of 185 works by 37 artists. The Collection was opened to the public on October 22, 1961.
 
The two works supposedly by Caravaggio remain unauthenticated; they are entitled Portrait of a Citizen and Goddess of Plenty. It is the 400th anniversary of the birth of the artist that has prompted new interest in the works which are usually kept in the collection’s vaults. Of the paintings’ provenance, the curator, Dr. Jasna Jovanovic has said “We assume he [Pavle Beljanski] bought them while in office in Rome in 1930s.”
 
Pavle Beljanski Memorial Collection
Београд, Serbia, 68 km SE

View Larger Map