Word: ginevra
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...most pampered and mysterious ladies of the Italian Renaissance took up official residence in Washington last week. With a minimum of fanfare, Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra dei Bend (see color), acquired from the private collection of Prince Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein for more than $5,000,000 last month, went on display in solitary splendor in the National Gallery's "Lobby B," a small anteroom with a 28-ft. ceiling, limestone walls and a marble floor...
...National Gallery's courtly, erudite Director John Walker, 60, who has spent years negotiating for the painting, the present hoo-ha is simply proportionate to the prize. He has coveted Ginevra dei Bend ever since he was first shown the painting in the prince's collection by the late Bernard Berenson, in 1930. "After I became curator of the National Gallery," Walker recalls, "Berenson would say to me, 'I don't care what else you get as a curator, but before I die, I want you to get the Leonardo...
...contract was signed on Feb. 7. Transporting the painting to the U.S. involved security precautions and scientific hugger-mugger worthy of Maxwell Smart. Code name for the painting was "the Bird." To transport Ginevra, a $52.95 American Tourister three-suiter was lined with Styrofoam that would cushion any bumps or jolts. But before the Bird could be nested, there were the problems of humidity and temperature to solve; in the Prince's vaults, where Ginevra had been kept, the temperature is 44°, humidity 55%. If the wood-panel oil heated or dried too quickly, the paint surface might...
Repellent & Alluring. At 1 p.m. Zurich time, Modestini, Feidler and their 490-year-old companion boarded Swissair Flight 100. Ginevra occupied a $417 window seat. Beneath the suitcase tab was a dial, similar to those used on meat thermometers, indicating the temperature deep within the Styrofoam. "We checked her temperature every hour," says Feidler, who found it rising slowly but no faster than anticipated. "I would be less than truthful if I didn't say that I had apprehensions." A five-hour delay in landing was caused by an East Coast snowstorm. At New York, customs officials, alerted...
When the painting goes on display at the gallery on March 17, it may cause some controversy, for Ginevra dei Benci is no Mona Lisa. Leonardo painted her some 29 years earlier, when he had only recently completed his apprenticeship in the Florentine studio of Andrea del Verrocchio. The technique, while accomplished, is stiffer than that of his later works. Yet Ginevra, a curly-haired blonde with narrow, almost Mongolian eyes, a stern, pale mouth and alabaster skin, is clearly one of Leonardo's ladies. Like La Gioconda, she is ambivalent, as cold as she is beautiful...