Naples Academy of Fine Arts, Art museum in Naples, Italy
The Naples Academy of Fine Arts is an art school and museum with galleries displaying paintings, sculptures, and drawings. The collections feature works by Italian artists spanning multiple time periods, from earlier pieces to contemporary creations.
The gallery was founded in 1864, when it moved from the Royal Bourbon Museum into the palazzo housing the Accademia di Belle Arti. Filippo Palizzi gave it a definitive arrangement in 1891, and it opened officially in 1916 under Vincenzo Volpe. Structural problems, the 1930 earthquake, the Second World War and thefts kept it closed for long periods until its reopening in 2005.
The gallery keeps the name of the Accademia di Belle Arti that shares the building, and its holdings grew from the Palizzi donation of 1896, which brought foreign artists such as Corot, Decamps and Rousseau into a Neapolitan teaching collection. A room is devoted to Vincenzo Gemito's sculpture, and the gallery also holds a ricamo a fili incollati by the 18th-century embroiderer Marianna Elmo.
The gallery occupies the palazzo of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, in the city centre. It was closed for years after 1916 and again after the 1930 earthquake, the Second World War and thefts, and only reopened definitively in 2005, so check current opening arrangements before setting out.
The gallery holds a broderie à fils collés, an embroidery of glued threads, by the 18th-century needleworker Marianna Elmo. In 2020 the Carabinieri's cultural heritage unit recovered a painting by the Venetian Giulio Carpioni that had been stolen in the 1970s.
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