From the 22nd November to the 29th March 2009 the rooms of Palazzo Reale in Milan will house the works of one of the most important and original figures of Surrealism, René Magritte. As preannounced in the title of the event, “The mystery of Nature”, about a hundred works will highlight the artist’s relationship with nature, seen not as a petty manifest phenomenon, but as a fleeting mystery to investigate. The Milanese exhibition aims at commending the creative genius of one of the rare nineteenth century artists who dealt with the theme of nature, placing it at the centre of his research, relating it with the limits and the undertones of contemporary reality.

Due marvellous masterpieces by the painter Canaletto (1697-1768), portraying two views of the Venetian lagoon, will be auctioned for the first time at Christie’s next 2nd December in London during the auction “Important Old Master and British Pictures”. The total estimate for the two canvases is between 7 and 11 million pounds, but sector experts are actually suggesting that the final figure could be double, given that Canaletto always receives applauses and success within the market, thanks to significant hammer prices.

The Old Master Paintings auction, held on the 17th November at Sotheby’s venue in Milan, proved to be a sale in line with the general trend of the art market. Indeed, the auction totalled 1,676,425 euros, with 66 lots left unsold and 78 sold.The catalogue presented just a few masterpieces, although many paintings exceeded their estimates.

A truly extraordinary occasion opened up on the 16th November in Milan to end on the 14th December. Indeed, in the Sala Alessi of Palazzo Marino a wonderful and unfortunately hardly known work by Caravaggio will be exhibited: “The Conversion of Saul”. A work that proves to be the only relevant example of painting on panel by the great Lombard master.
Executed in 1601, it has had a rather tormented history. It was commissioned by Tiberio Cerasi for his personal chapel in S. Maria del Popolo in Rome, where the work was never exposed due to the protracting of the works and to the sudden death of the cardinal himself. Afterwards, it ended up in Spain, was then bought by the Balbi family from Genoa and finally, in the Fifties, it returned by way of heredity to Rome as the “pearl” of the Odescalchi collection.

In the International panorama, American artist Matthew Barney represents the image of original artist who, crossing different cultural ambits, creates an artistic language that is transversal and unique in its kind.
His conceptual and aesthetic poetics combine fragments of all the mythologies produced in the history of humanity, ranging from the most classical kind, to the most anomalous and reaching the most contemporary, giving life to a great new cosmogony, which is omnivorous and hybrid.

A seventeenth century painting by El Greco has recently been bought by the foundation created by wish of Greek magnate Aristotle Onassis and last Wednesday it was displayed for the first time at the National Art Gallery in Athens.
The painting “Coronation of the Virgin” was bought last summer, for an unstated amount, by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation