Courtesy Collection Corsini, Florence, Italy, Arrigo Coppitz

       October 2008 In The Air

Darkest Hour

Homage to Hirst

Watch Your Step

Bernini Myth Understood Italy Loans Bernini Works to Getty An Italian Affair

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After years of battling cultural-patrimony issues, the Getty has staged a diplomatic coup with its new Bernini survey by borrowing several sculptures from Italy that had never left the country before. One, a powerful circa 1658 bronze bust of Pope Urban VIII Barberini, left, came from the venerable Corsini family, of Florence. Duke Duccio Corsini, a winemaker who provided the Chianti for the Getty opening, admits that he had hardly given the sculpture a second glance before. “It was a wedding gift—not commissioned for the family—so it was basically gathering dust,” he says. Besides, he adds, “I collect contemporary.”

"Busted" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents.