COLLECTION Identifier: BER-48

Giannino Marchig glass plate collection, 1939-1949

Content Description

The collection includes 1342 negatives: glass plates: b w; various sizes, most 21 x 27cm and 13 x 18cm

Scope and Contents

The collection comprises 1342 black-and-white negatives on silver gelatin glass plates taken by an unidentified photographer between the early 1930s, when GM devoted himself to conservation, and the end of 1949 when he left Florence and moved to Switzerland. Before leaving Florence, GM donated his glass plate collection to Geremia Gioffredi, BB’s estate manager and administrator. Upon Gioffredi’s death in 1997, the collection came to I Tatti through Gioffredi’s daughter, Fiorella Gioffredi Superbi, who at the time was Curator of the Fototeca Berenson and of the Berenson Art Collections and Archives. The original envelopes bearing old handwritten numbers of the glass plate negatives are preserved separately. Most of the negatives document restorations carried out by GM, and show works of art before, during and after treatment. Such documentation is not always complete for all the works of art photographed. This collection includes Italian and non-Italian artworks, mainly sacred but also profane subject paintings, numerous portraits, a small group of still life paintings. A wide range of artists and schools from the XII up to XIX centuries is represented, and notably a considerable number of Venetian paintings, a school of which GM had a deep knowledge. There are total views and details, X-rays, backs of panels and also reproductions of letters; expertises printed texts, and publications. The collection documents in large part paintings of varying quality on the art market, mostly unidentified, but also includes important Medieval and Renaissance paintings.

Dates

Creation: 1939 - 1949

Conditions Governing Access

Glass plate collection is closed to consultation.

Prints taken from the glass plates are open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Extent

21 boxes
1342 glass plate negatives ; 30 x 40 and smaller.

Additional Description

Biographical / Historical

Giannino Marchig was born in 1897 in Trieste. He was interested in painting and also in music and theatre. By the beginning of World War I, in 1915, he left Trieste in order to escape recruitment in the Austrian army, and moved to Florence, where attended the Accademia di Belle Arti. In 1920 was awarded with the Premio Stibbert. Between 1920 and 1921 he stayed at the Vermeherens, a Dutch family of esteemed conservators of the Uffizi, from whom he learned the principles of painting conservation. In 1924 he painted La morte di un autore (Death of an Author) which won the Premio Ussi. Between 1925 and 1939 he worked intensely in his studio, 2 piazza degli Scarlatti, on the Lungarno. He travelled abroad (Spain, London) continuing the study of the Old Masters, especially the Venetians and their technique, and alternated his residence between Florence and Trieste. In 1930 an exhibition of his paintings was held at the Galleria Bardi in Milan, presented by Roberto Papini. Notwithstanding his intense activity as a painter, since 1930 he increasingly devoted himself to painting conservation mostly because of economic difficulties. In 1931 he began to work for the Sindacato Nazionale Fascista di Belle Arti. In 1932, he carried out some restorations for the Pinacoteca di Napoli. In 1937 GM won the gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris. By this time, he decided to give up painting and started a new professional life as conservator. This change was also influenced by Bernard Berenson of whom he became an acquaintance around the same time. GM recovered the paintings of the Berenson Collection among the ruins of the building where they had been stored during World War II, and restored them. In 1945, he fostered the exhibition on French painting from its origins to Cézanne held at Palazzo Pitti, for whose catalog Berenson wrote the preface. In 1949, after having met Janina (Jeanne) Paszkowska, he left Florence and moved to Switzerland with her. After their marriage they settled in Geneva. He travelled to Paris and France (1950), to New York and Washington (1952-53) and worked for the Wildenstein gallery. In 1969-1970, also urged by his wife, he resumed to paint. He died 86 in Geneva in 1983.

Existence and Location of Copies

Contact gelatin prints were made in the late 1990s from the glass plates, and they are available for consultation in the Fototeca Berenson reading room.