Even after centuries, colors on copper shine as if the picture had only just been finished.

That's one reason why the "Assumption of Mary" by Guido Reni (1575 to 1642), which the Städel Museum owns, is so special.

The other: "The Städel has the prototype," says Bastian Eclercy, the curator of Italian, French, and Spanish painting up to 1800. "His" Maria dates from 1598/99, all the others, who are now gathered in one room in the museum, emerged later.

And even the related “Immaculata Conceptio”, a monumental Immaculate Conception from 1627 that arrived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, still breathes the gestures and colors, the glowing orange background of its earliest predecessor.

Eva Maria Magel

Senior cultural editor of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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However, despite its immense size with an almost empty image background, there where a real hidden object can still be seen in the Städel Ascension.

It's rare that you get to see so many similar motifs next to each other in order to compare them at leisure.

No wonder Eclercy speaks of a "dream of realizing this space": "The ambition was to bring together all of Reni's Ascension pictures that are transportable."

First comprehensive presentation in more than 30 years

That succeeded.

And so the entrance to the exhibition signals “Guido Reni.

The Divine" at the same time, which was the actual motivation for this first comprehensive presentation by the painter in more than 30 years: a single picture, a new addition, precisely that "Ascension".

On the occasion of the 200th birthday of the oldest museum foundation founded in 1815 by the bourgeoisie, citizens donated again.

Financed by the Städelsches Museums-Verein, the Städel could wish to purchase a work.

And Eclercy, who had just arrived at the Schaumainkai in 2014, saw a gap in 17th-century Italian painting.

When he saw the "Assumption of Mary", which he had accidentally discovered in an auction catalog a year earlier, at a dealer's market again,

Because 17th-century Italian painting “was not represented in a representative manner in the Städel and could still be acquired at reasonably reasonable prices,” says Eclercy.

For such an early major work, "Real" roughly means "an amount in the lower single-digit millions".

The story of the purchase is almost the genesis of the exhibition.

Because such a decision requires research.

Many are working hard, the restorers assess the condition, curators research the context of the work and see where the work stands in the research, where it would stand in their own house.

The picture was only known to date from a black-and-white photograph, says Eclercy, so it made sense to dedicate an essay to it.

That came with the purchase and led to the idea of ​​doing more.

Not every skyward glance is a treasure

The great effort to research the context of the picture and to go deeper and deeper is of course also related to "personal fascination", says Eclercy: "A great artist, many people know the name, but even colleagues who are not specialized in the field , often only have a vague idea of ​​his work.

Its reputation was also detrimental to the fact that it was overshadowed by kitsch reception in the 19th century,” he says.