From Rome with love: Caravaggio's $50-million painting debuts in Bengaluru
The painting, which is 419 years old, is a $50 million masterpiece.
The work — Maddalena in Estasi (Magdalene in Ecstasy) — is now on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Vasanth Nagar. The arrival of the painting, previously housed only in European collections, signals a growing effort to make globally significant art accessible across India, beyond the usual cultural hubs.
Andrea Anastasio, director of the Italian Cultural Centre (Delhi), told TOI: "This painting captures a moment of rapture, Magdalene's emotional response after seeing the risen Christ.
It reflects that intense emotional state when joy and pain blur because the feeling is too powerful to hold. Caravaggio's composition deepens this impact. Her body lies on a diagonal, three-quarters turned toward us. The lower half is detailed, the upper half dark and empty, drawing us into her experience.
It shows how art can merge beauty with emotional truth."
As to why the painting, created in 1606, is debuting in Bengaluru, Anastasio said: "The choice is personal, too.
I lived in this city for 10 years. Bengaluru has a unique energy and an intellectual openness that's hard to miss. There's a growing appetite here for meaningful, global cultural experiences, and this city deserves to be part of that conversation."
Alfonso Tagliaferri, consul general of Italy in Bengaluru, said, "One might wonder why it took so long for us to bring this masterpiece to India. It's extremely rare for Caravaggio's works to leave the museums they're housed in; many are simply too fragile or too important to be moved.
This painting is one of the very few still in private hands, rediscovered only a decade ago. That's what made this moment possible. A year and a half ago, we opened the consulate general here.
We're committed to building stronger ties with South India, and bringing a $50 million masterpiece here is a gesture of friendship, of cultural diplomacy."
Sophisticated, but relatable
"Caravaggio is one of the greatest names in Italian — and world — art history," Tagliaferri said.
"He completely changed how we paint biblical scenes. Before him, the Renaissance tradition made people look idealised, clean, graceful, perfect. Caravaggio painted raw human emotion. His figures had dirt under their nails. Their pain was visible; their joy, too. The light in his work is dramatic, almost cinematic; it feels like theatre or film.
In a way, it's very contemporary. You could even say it's Instagrammable."
"That's what makes him so special, he speaks to everyone," he added. "It is complex, sophisticated, but instantly relatable. You don't need to know art history to feel something when you see his work. And that's why we're so thrilled people in Bengaluru now get to experience this up close."
Alongside the painting, visitors can experience a specially designed virtual reality installation that brings Caravaggio's world to life.
This immersive experience offers art enthusiasts a deeper, more personal engagement with the artist's work, techniques, and influence.
Sanjeev Kishor Goutam, director general of NGMA, said, "Bringing this painting to Bengaluru is a cultural moment for the city. For the first time, Bengalureans can see a work attributed to Caravaggio. This showcase honours his creative legacy, which continues to shape global art history even centuries later.
We believe this exhibition will have a lasting influence, not only on seasoned art lovers but also on young minds.
We're expecting a strong turnout from students, scholars, and the wider public, people from all walks of life curious about how powerful art can transcend time, geography, and belief."
The exhibition will be open to the public from Saturday (June 14) to July 6, between 10am and 6pm, at NGMA.
Follow more information on
Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here
. Get
real-time live updates
on rescue operations and check
full list of passengers onboard AI 171
.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
Sanjay Garg, Hanut Singh and India Art Fair to host Incandescent 2.0 in Hyderabad
Textile designer Sanjay Garg and jewellery designer Hanut Singh will present Incandescent 2.0, a meeting point of art, textiles and jewellery, in collaboration with the India Art Fair. Sanjay's flagship store Raw Mango will host an all-day exhibition curated by Belgian designer and stylist, Isla Maria Van Damme. The first edition of Incandescent was held in Delhi in 2023, showcasing Hanut's jewellery with global aesthetics and Sanjay's contemporary line of saris and garments worked upon by craft clusters in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Varanasi. Antique marble statues were used to display the statement jewellery pieces. Hanut, whose jewellery has adorned personalities such as Madonna, Meryl Streep, Rihanna, Beyoncé and Kareena Kapoor, says working with Raw Mango and the India Art Fair 'introduces structure, scale, and systems that are different from my usual rhythm. These collaborations also help me see my own work through a different lens, reframing how it's presented and how people engage with it.' Sanjay does not look at art, design, fashion and culture as compartmentalised silos: 'Design is not just fashion and what's visual. The idea of design is to create experiences that spark conversations on culture, heritage and history.' Hanut, who hails from the Karputhala royal family in Punjab, reflects on his shared interests with Sanjay: 'Many of my pieces are drawn from my time in the hills — their stillness, their organic forms, and that sense of awe at what reveals itself unexpectedly. For Sanjay too, Nature is a grounding force. You can see it in the way his Hyderabad store is anchored in a forest-like atmosphere.' In his first showcase in the city, Hanut will be presenting a mix of classics and current explorations. 'One of the standout pieces for me is the emerald windchimes; they combine technical artistry, with emeralds cut into delicate triangles, and a sense of lightness, movement, and balance.' Hanut's design inspirations range from history to architecture and Nature, reflected as forms of daggers, swords, or leaves. Sanjay and Hanut first collaborated for Raw Mango's 2021 collection, Romantics. Sanjay recalls, 'The collection was rooted in European influence on Indian saris. Textiles drew from the Rococo period, developing a new language of botanicals — flora and fauna — in woven form. It's the same distinctly European language that influences Hanut's work, it made perfect sense.' Hanut says that their interests, rooted in craft, heritage, modernity, and luxury, helped them complement each other's work. 'Our languages may not seem like obvious companions at first glance, mine more maximal and Sanjay more of a minimalist, but they sit beautifully together — both drawing from the past while reimagining it for the present, with an eye to the future.' They also discovered that they had clients in common — Kiran Rao, Mira Nair, and Karisma Kapoor. Hanut says, 'So perhaps the challenge isn't in the aesthetics themselves, but in the wearer — in whether she has the confidence to mix genres. Many of the women who inspire me, like Gayatri Devi or my grandmother, Sita Devi, did exactly that, pairing their chiffons with Cartier or Boucheron, rather than jadau or more traditional forms.' Sanjay adds that the curation of found objects and textiles reflects how their perspectives exist together. As for choosing Hyderabad for the exhibition, Sanjay says it was one of Raw Mango's earliest markets. 'The city is an interesting mix of history and modernity. It is one of the most multicultural cities in the south — cosmopolitan, multilinguistic, even with their food.' (Incandescent 2.0 will be on view at Raw Mango store, road no.1, Banjara Hills, on August 6)
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
The Moroccan Sahara will bloom: Christopher Nolan's filming in Dakhla puts the seal of approval to the region's development and future
Christopher Nolan's latest production 'The Odyssey' is facing some criticism because a part of it was shot in the Moroccan Sahara city of Dakhla. The protests are coming from so-called Sahrawi activists and FiSahara, which organises a movie festival in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria's Tindouf region. The same camps from which there have been reports of gross human rights violations, diversion of aid and rioting. This is because the separatist Polisario Front that runs the camps with Algeria's support virtually treats them like prisons. Till date the Polsario has refused to conduct a census in these camps despite being repeatedly urged to do so. The point here is that the Moroccan Sahara issue – which is a leftover baggage from Morocco's colonial history – continues to be used by external forces for their own vested interests. And in this process, these external actors completely eschew facts. For example, they will not tell you that 19th century European colonial powers had hived off the Moroccan Sahara from Morocco proper. In fact, Spain and France actually had through their own arrangement created their own spheres of influence in Morocco. They will also not tell you that when Morocco became independent in 1956 it vowed to recover its Sahara provinces which were still under Spanish colonial control. In fact, the speech of Morocco's erstwhile monarch, King Mohammed V, grandfather of current King Mohammed VI, at M'hamid al-Ghizlan in 1958 saw him pledge to the Sahrawi tribal chiefs that he would work to recover the Sahara in keeping with Morocco's historical rights. Recall also that in 1963 Morocco itself brought the Sahara issue to the UN, asking the international body to recognise the Sahara as a non-governing territory to be decolonised by Spain. Then there is the selective amnesia of the 1963 Sand War between Morocco and Algeria. It was due to this conflict that Algeria adopted a strategy of hemming in Morocco through asymmetric means. The latter included supporting, arming and funding a separatist Sahrawi group called the Polisario Front. The Polisario simply wouldn't have sustained without Algeria's material and diplomatic backing. And it was solely to undermine Morocco that the Polisario was egged on by Algeria to carry out an armed struggle against Rabat under the guise of seeking independence for the Sahara. A UN brokered ceasefire between the two sides in 1991 also lays bares Polisario's duplicity. It has never created the conditions for a referendum nor taken care of the refugees in its Tindouf camps. Ideally, Polisario should release the inmates in those camps. The Polisario leadership has simply been pawns in Algiers' hands. And yet they continue to wear the garb of 'independence'. The Moroccan Sahara provinces are legally and historically Moroccan. The 1975 Madrid Accords divided the Moroccan Sahara between Morocco and Mauritania. But Mauritania gave up its claims in 1979, leaving only Morocco's legitimate claims intact. Since then Morocco, under King Mohammed VI, whose Throne Day is today (July 30), has proposed an Autonomy Plan for the Sahara which devolves significant political powers to the region but under Moroccan sovereignty. The plan has growing international support with the US officially declaring it as the only solution to the Sahara issue under Moroccan sovereignty. Similarly, both France and Spain are now onboard with the Autonomy Plan. Portugal too recently reiterated its support for Rabat's position and the UK has called the plan credible. In turn, Morocco has made huge investments in the Sahara provinces to develop local economy, tourism, agriculture and fisheries. Many countries already have their consulates in Sahara cities. And Dakhla where Nolan was shooting is a hot tourism destination for European travellers. Taken together, Morocco's position on the Moroccan Sahara is clear and transparent. The manipulations are being carried out by Algeria and Polisario. Nolan should be applauded for filming in Dakhla. Hopefully it will open the door to more Hollywood and European productions in the region. A minority of people must not be allowed to hold the future of the Moroccan Sahara hostage. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
New Indian Express
4 hours ago
- New Indian Express
Judging The Covers
Cinema on the cover Over the years, he has amassed nearly 10,000 records from across the world, especially from the US and Germany. While his collection includes everything from Western classical and Latin guitar to folk and Indian classical music, the exhibition focuses solely on film soundtrack covers. The covers have been arranged chronologically, starting from the 1950s. One of Ghosh's favourites, the 1959 Charlton Heston-starrer Ben-Hur cover, displays the film's monumental scale through its massive, colossal architectural typography, against an ochre background. 'You can see the lettering; it's designed in such a way that just by looking at it, you feel like you're watching a 70mm movie,' he says. Among the Hollywood highlights is The Godfather (1972), featuring the famous puppet-string logo in black and white. Another standout is Superman: The Movie (1978), with its gleaming 3D logo and an inner sleeve that shows Christopher Reeve in mid-flight, cape billowing behind. On the other hand, Doctor Zhivago (1965) has a softer, wintry appeal; its split portrait of the lead lovers played by Omar Sharif and Julie Christie depicting the tragic romance set against the backdrop of the Russian revolution. The Indian section of the exhibition is equally enchanting. Leading the row is Satyajit Ray, with four soundtrack covers of his films–designed by his son, Sandip Ray–put under spotlight. These include Shatranj Ke Khiladi, with a chessboard-like bordered pattern; and Ghore Baire, with the saffron wash and a flame motif placed atop the title. The exhibition also displays lesser-acknowledged gems like the 1979 Meera album featuring Hema Malini framed within a quatrefoil border, or Oliver! (1968) with its vintage-inspired oval frame.
