On rare loan this fall and winter from Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Giorgione’s Three Philosophers joins the Frick’s beloved Bellini panel St. Francis in the Desert, providing an unprecedented opportunity for audiences to see the pair of paintings in dialogue. The two works were owned by the same Venetian collector, Taddeo Contarini, perhaps as pendants, and were displayed for many decades in his palazzo before their separation four centuries ago. The presentation of these two icons together is curated by Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, who is authoring an accompanying book about the paintings and their original owner and his collection.
This presentation is generously funded by David and Julie Tobey, Ambassador and Mrs. W. L. Lyons Brown, Kathleen Feldstein, Michael and Jane Horvitz, the Robert Lehman Foundation, the Estate of Seymour R. Askin Jr., the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Gini and Randall Barbato, Jerald D. Fessenden, Mary and Howard S. Frank, Fernand Lamesch and Mary Pisacane, the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, Gabelli Funds, Hubert and Mireille Goldschmidt, Casey Kohlberg, Patricia Dugan Perlmuth, Michael L. Santini, Constantine P. Sidamon-Eristoff, the Consulate General of Italy in New York, Mercy Cohen, and an anonymous donor.
Giorgio da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione (ca. 1477–1510), The Three Philosophers, ca. 1508–9. Oil on canvas, 49 7/16 x 57 9/16 in. (125.5 x 146.2 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Photo: KHM-Museumsverband