AFC Summer Newsletter
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View of the newly reopened historic Giardino dei Principi (Garden of the Princes) in the Capodimonte Park. In the background a view of Vesuvius.
AFC travelers with US Ambassador Campbell Bauer at the American Embassy in Paris. June, 2023.
A Farewell from AFC President Cristina Del Sesto
Dear AFC Friends,
Creating something out of nothing is a rare experience. American Friends of Capodimonte was just a far fetched idea in the beginning. Even before his publicly announced appointment as the Director of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in November 2015, Sylvain Bellenger invited several Americans to build a nonprofit to support a museum that few of us had heard of.
Tasked by AFC co-founder and president Vincent Buonanno to assess Capodimonte’s needs and what this nonprofit might be able to do, I went to Naples in early 2016. I was given full creative license to invent whatever I thought would be possible and useful.
AFC travelers on their Washington DC trip with National Gallery of Art curator and AFC board member Gretchen Hirschauer, January 2023.
Looking at the landscape of other “Friends” groups and the limited time and resources with which we were starting, we had to be scrappy to launch. We used our early funds to invest in a postdoctoral curator; this offered an economical way to make a significant impact quickly. Recruitment of James Anno into this position made the AFC's mission become a reality.
My next initiative was board development; to build upon a solid foundation of the three initial board members would anchor AFC for future growth. I turned to friends and friends of friends. Claire Van Cleave joined the board as did Nancy Vespoli and eventually Henrietta Hakes, Benjamin Patton, Victoria Gath, Gretchen Hirschauer and, most recently, Mary Ellen Countryman. After two terms, Vincent stepped down as president and Nancy stepped into the role and made a transformational gift, as Vin had done in years prior. She also brought with her a posse of devoted and generous friends who joined the board and went on the AFC trips: Mary Humenansky, Bart Livolsi, and Francis Prins. Nancy stepped down after two terms and I stepped up into the position of president of the board. To acknowledge his transformational gift of housing for our AFC Fellows, Dr. Giovanni Lombardi was invited to join the AFC as Honorary President.
The AFC at the Louvre for the Naples in Paris exhibition with Capodimonte Director Sylvain Bellenger. June 2023.
Since the AFC’s founding ten years ago there have been three post-doctoral AFC Fellows and two Senior Fellows. All have exceeded expectations in bringing awareness to an English-speaking audience about Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte through scholarship. There have also been art trips with Directors Bellenger and Eike Schmidt (appointed in January 2025), loans to U.S. museums and two noteworthy U.S. traveling exhibitions: Flesh & Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Collection (2020) and Art & War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries (2024/2025), which just closed at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
The AFC in front of the Battle of Pavia Tapestries in San Francisco with Capodimonte Director Eike Schmidt. October 2024.
Creating wider public access to the Capodimonte Museum has been a privilege and an opportunity of a lifetime. Together, we have had a meaningful purpose by spotlighting this international gem of a fine arts museum. I owe my deepest gratitude to all of you who have shared my passion and especially my fellow board members past and present. Before Founder’s Syndrome sets in, I’ve resigned. The board is strong and it is time for someone else to lead the charge with fresh ideas and renewed energy. Nancy Vespoli has graciously agreed to serve as Acting President supported by a very active executive board: Program Director James Anno, Treasurer ME Countryman, and Secretary Gretchen Hirschauer.
Best wishes for the summer! Passa una bella estate!
Kimberly Schenck’s Senior Fellowship
AFC Fellows Emma de Jong and Kimberly Schenck with an album from the Carlo Firmian Collection.
Rembrandt prints mounted on paper and viewed in transmitted light.
For the month of April, I had the wonderful experience of assisting AFC fellow Emma de Jong and Capodimonte curator Vincenzo Stanziola in the department of prints and drawings. Much of my time was spent with Emma examining albums of prints in the collection of Carlo Firmian (1718-1782). One of our tasks was to look carefully at the structure of bound and unbound albums for clues of their production and previous lives. When viewing the prints and mounting papers in transmitted light, we sometimes found watermarks or designs imparted to the sheets from the papermaking screen. One watermark found in many mounting papers contains the letters BMO, an abbreviation of Bergamo, a historic papermaking center not far from Milan where the collection was mounted in the eighteenth century.
Using my skills as a paper conservator to help the department was gratifying. I constructed folders, applied paper hinges to prints, and repaired tears in prints and drawings. Currently I am preparing an overview of my observations on the state of preservation of the Firmian Collection and making suggestions for improvements in its care.
Drawings by Giovanni Lanfranco on blue and gray papers.
My final day was spent viewing drawings by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-1647). The Capodimonte Museum has rich holdings in the drawings of this Baroque master, especially of working sketches on blue and gray papers, an interest of mine. By Lanfranco’s time, colored papers were popular among artists for drawing in black and white chalks as the paper color acted as a middle tone for chiaroscuro effects. Also, the surface of these textured papers provided the necessary “tooth” to hold the powdery media.
Thank you for this amazing opportunity.
Kimberly Schenck, 2025 AFC Senior Fellow
American Friends Visit Capodimonte
Members of the AFC may request a tour of the Capodimonte Museum and Park from our AFC fellow (subject to availability). Please reach out to our fellow if you are planning a trip to Naples: fellow@americanfriendsofcapodimonte.info
AFC members from Richmond, VA, toured the galleries with Emma.
AFC members from New York enjoyed a private visit of the CHiesa di San Gennaro in the Capodimonte Bosco with Emma.
Senior Fellow Claire Van Cleave’s Farnese Drawings Book Published
AFC’s ‘20-’21 senior fellow Claire Van Cleave has published her book on Capodimonte’s collection of the Farnese drawings, including works by Parmigianino and Sofonisba Anguissola. At its peak, the Farnese collection included over 850 works on paper, but today only 57 drawings with a Farnese provenance are identifiable in Capodimonte’s collections. Claire began her research during her AFC fellowship. More information can be found on the publisher’s website.
You can follow Claire’s promotional events via a dedicated Instagram page: farnese_drawings
AFC Fellow Emma de Jong Attends Seminar on Print Curation
Printing an etching at Pauper’s Press
Viewing prints at the Welcome Collection
The British Museum Prints and Drawings Room
From March 19 to 26 Emma attended a seminar for ten young curators of prints, organized by Print Quarterly and fully funded by the Getty Paper Project. Three days were spent in London, visiting the Welcome Collection, the British Museum, and the private collection of Katrin Bellinger-Henkel. They had a workshop in etching and linocut at Pauper’s Press and attended the opening of the London Print Fair. In Paris, the group visited the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Rothschild Collection at the Louvre, Ecole des Beaux Arts, and Fondation Custodia. In the evenings they were invited to the openings of the Salon du Dessin, the Paris Print Fair, and an exclusive reception at the Musée de Cluny.
The Louvre Prints and Drawings Room
Anatomical prints at the Ecole des Beaux Arts
Japanese prints at the Bibliothèque Nationale
Capodimonte featured in The Wall Street Journal article
“Naples doesn’t really do small,”
explained Sylvain Bellenger, former director of Museo di Capodimonte, a museum housed in a massive pink and gray palace [...] Even larger than the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, the Museo di Capodimonte is currently undergoing renovations — but still has 50 galleries containing enough masterpieces by the likes of Masaccio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and Correggio to merit repeat visits."
Excerpt taken from ‘A Savvy Travelers Guide to Italy’s Other Great Art City’ in The Wall Street Journal from May 30.
Next stop: Pavia. Capodimonte Tapestries Exhibition Will Travel to the Pavia Battle Site for 500th Anniversary
After Fort Worth, San Francisco and Houston, Capodimonte’s seven tapestries of The Battle of Pavia will be travelling to the city where the depicted battle took place in five hundred years ago. The exhibition Pavia 1525: the City, the Arts, the Battle will be on view at the Civic Museums of the Visconti Castle from September 18, 2025 to January 11, 2026. Click here for more information.
The exhibition catalogue, with an essay by AFC fellow Emma de Jong, can be ordered from the publisher.