The Giustiniani collection was one of the most influential collections of
the European Baroque period. It was assembled by the brothers Vincenzo and
Benedetto Giustiniani, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The
collection was founded with a small number of works, which the brothers inherited
from their father. The collection included fifteen paintings by Caravaggio,and,
to mention only the more famed artists, Domenichino, Carracci, Veronese,
Dosso Dossi, as well as works attributed to Titian and Raphael. The brothers
particularly valued works by northern artists. Honthorst, Terbruggen, Duquesnoy,
and Poussin all completed commissions for them. In total, Benedetto and Vincenzo
Giustiniani owned some six hundred paintings, and some two thousand antiques.
In addition, the Palazzo Giustiniani contained valuable decorations, and
their villa in Bassano Romano included frescoes by Tempesta, Albani and
Domenichino. Numerous artists, from all over Europe, either worked for the
brothers, or visited their collection. As a result, the Giustiniani collection
had an extraordinary influence on the establishment of a common European
culture. The brothers influenced the artistic taste of an epoch, with their
wide-reaching personal relationships and friendships.
During the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, the collection was gradually
dispersed. In 1815 the Prussian King , Friedrich Wilhelm III, aquired one
hundred and fifty-seven pictures from the collection. Fourty-two of these
can be found today in Berlins
Gemäldegalerie, and a further twenty-five in the
Stiftung
Preußische Schlösser und Gärten in Potsdam.
Approximately half of the pictures from this once rich stock, were either
destroyed during or after the second world war, or are still
missing.
Numerous
other
museums and private collections also own works from the Giustiniani
collection.