Carnegie Museum of Art puts on a new spin on Neapolitan Presepio this year
The Neapolitan Presepio will be in the Scaife Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art through Jan. 10.
The Neapolitan Presepio will be in the Scaife Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art through Jan. 10.
The Neapolitan Presepio will be in the Scaife Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art through Jan. 10.
The Neapolitan Presepio will be in the Scaife Galleries at the Carnegie Museum of Art through Jan. 10.
For decades, the Neapolitan Presepio has been a holiday tradition at the Carnegie Museum of Art as fixed as candy canes and mistletoe.
The elaborate display that blends together biblical figures and scenes that depict life in Naples, Italy, in the 18th and 19th centuries, has usually found its home in the museum鈥檚 Hall of Architecture. This year, however, museum officials decided to try a different approach, placing the Neapolitan Presepio in the Scaife Galleries, where it will be seen alongside paintings and sculptures that can provide context for it.
Setting up the Neapolitan Presepio in the galleries makes it 鈥渟o much more intimate than the Hall of Architecture,鈥� according to Rachel Delphia, the museum鈥檚 curator of decorative arts and design. 鈥淲e wanted to see it in a new light. It鈥檚 more up close and personal in the Scaife Galleries. It鈥檚 really a new experience and context.鈥�
The Neapolitan Presepio has been part of the Carnegie Museum of Art鈥檚 collection since 1957, shortly after Neapolitan art collector Eugenio Cattello donated it. It contains almost 100 human and angelic figures, dozens of figures of animals and more. The Nativity scene is situated in front of a Roman ruin and is meant to symbolize the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity. The marketplace scenes depict everything from a cheese seller to visitors from the Italian countryside.
The mingling of biblical tales with scenes from the more recent past reflected 鈥渁 desire to situate the biblical story within their own experience,鈥� Delphia explained. 鈥淭hey were really having fun with it.鈥�
In the Scaife Galleries, the Neapolitan Presepio will be within close proximity to such works as 鈥淭he Nativity鈥� and 鈥淭he King and the Shepherd,鈥� both by British painter Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Aside from establishing the Neapolitan Presepio within a broader universe of sacred art, Delphia explained that putting it in the Scaife Galleries will also lead visitors who might have made an annual pilgrimage just to see it to broaden their horizons.
鈥淲e want to bring people into different parts of the museum,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e want to encourage people to explore.鈥�
The Neapolitan Presepio will be in the Scaife Galleries through Jan. 10. Tours of the exhibit with a docent will be available through Jan. 9 on Thursdays at starting at 6 p.m., as well as Saturdays and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. For additional information, go online to www.cmoa.org, or call 412-622-3131.