Abstract
Reviewed by: Elizabeth B. Smith, Pennsylvania State University, USA
As implied by the title of this biographical sketch, Stefano Bardini (1836–1922), the late nineteenth century Florentine art dealer, cannot be defined by that reductive term. Rather, in his long career, ranging from the 1870s to 1920, Bardini, the “Prince of antiquarians,” could be said to have created almost single-handedly the booming market for the art of the early Italian Renaissance, paving the way for the great American art dealer Bernard Berenson and the many others who followed in his wake. Over the years, Bardini was successful in selling to a number of major European museums, most especially to those in Berlin, where the curator Wilhelm von Bode purchased both paintings and sculpture from Bardini. However, in spite of his wide circle of clientele and his immense influence on the taste of both Europeans and Americans in the late nineteenth century, Berdini has yet to be the object of a major biographical study. With this slim book, Moskowitz sets out to inspire a new generation of art historians to undertake such an enterprise. Sketching out the basic facts of Bardini’s life, from his early training as an artist and a restorer, throughout his long career as a dealer, Moskowitz succeeds in whetting the appetite of the reader, who wishes to learn more of Bardini’s modus operandi, to figure out exactly how he conceived of his role and how he carried it out.
A major reason for the lack of a comprehensive biographical study of Bardini is the fact that in spite of the existence in Florence of a large body of archival material relating to his life and career, that portion dealing with the period before 1905 has been, to date, both difficult to access and almost entirely lacking comprehensive organization. Projects to organize and to digitize the Bardini Archives are currently under way, a fact which renders Moskowitz’s book especially timely.
Basing her descriptions of Bardini’s life primarily on published material, some of it personal reminiscences by contemporaries, Moskowitz lays out Bardini’s progression from the painting studios of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, where he studied in the 1850s, through his brief stint as a soldier in Garibaldi’s army, and on to his evolution into a dealer in works of art. Noting how as a painter Bardini did not develop a singular style but that he seemed able to change styles at will depending on what was required of him in any particular commission, Moskowitz suggests that this ability would prove invaluable to him in his eventual chosen career. This chameleon-like quality, together with his understanding of the techniques of early painters and sculptors, enabled Bardini to salvage and to restore damaged works of art, ranging from frescoes to panel paintings to relief sculptures. Sometimes, Bardini would go so far as to create pastiches, blending bits and pieces salvaged from various sources into a single work of art. These he would then sell to the unsuspecting buyer.
While Bardini’s knowledge and understanding of Renaissance was a major factor in his quick rise to the position of the most important dealer in this area, also crucial to his success, were his organizational powers. Bardini himself cultivated the old Florentine nobility, many of whom had fallen into somewhat straitened circumstances. At the same time, he also maintained a large team of pickers, who combed the towns and countryside of Tuscany and the rest of Central Italy, searching out works of art that they would bring to Bardini, who would clean them up for sale to his clientele. Navigating carefully through the tangle of ever-changing export laws and import tariffs. Bardini was successful in selling works of the Italian Renaissance to museums and individual customers throughout Europe and America. Perhaps even more important to Bardini’s success, however, was his innovative concept of how best to display the works of art he wished to sell.
Devoting an entire chapter to this aspect of Bardini’s sales technique, Moskowitz outlines the way in which Bardini, unlike most other art dealers of the time, refrained from clutter. Instead, he carefully created what he saw as the optimum setting in which to show off each of the works of art he wished to sell. Purchasing several adjoining late medieval and Renaissance properties in the Oltrarno, Bardini literally deconstructed and rebuilt them, moving staircases, and other architectural elements, into what he envisaged as the optimum showcase for the art. Signature features of Bardini’s displays were his attention to proper lighting, in which he made extensive use of skylights, and his application of a certain blue paint to the surface of the walls on which paintings and relief sculpture were to be shown. Both Bardini’s blue paint, sometimes referred to as “Bardini Blue”, and his lighting techniques would be imitated by clients.
Although the Bardiini archives have yet to be sorted and digitized, much can be learned by visiting the Museo Bardini. This museum, which opened in 2009 in the building housing his main sales rooms, affords visitors a glimpse into the display techniques that made Bardin such a success. Left by Bardini to the Comune of Florence in 1922, the museum was sadly repurposed. Throughout the rest of the twentieth century, most of the works of art that had belonged to Bardini went into storage, and the former sales rooms were repainted a dull hue. It was not until 1995, under the Minister of Culture Antonio Paolucci, that renovations were begun so as to create the museum as Bardini intended it to be. It is to be hoped that together, the Bardini Museum and this new biographical sketch by Anita Moskowitz, will inspire fresh inquiry into the life and practice of this prince of antiquarians.