A 500-year-old religious triptych by Andrea Previtali has been brought together for the first time in almost two centuries. The reunion forms the centrepiece of a new exhibition examining the painter’s place in the Venetian Renaissance.

Three panels of a Renaissance altarpiece, separated for almost 200 years, have been reunited in Italy for an exhibition opening on Saturday, 17th October, offering visitors a rare opportunity to see a work by Andrea Previtali in its original arrangement.

The painting, created around 1515 for the Church of the Annunciation in Serina, near Bergamo, has been reconstructed through cooperation between the Diocese of Bergamo and the Museo Villa Bassi Rathgeb in Abano Terme, close to Padua. One panel, depicting a bishop saint, belongs to the museum’s permanent collection, while the remaining two have been brought together for the exhibition.

The reunion was confirmed on 16 October by Italy’s Ministry of Culture heritage authority. It forms the central attraction of Andrea Previtali: Disciple of Giovanni Bellini, which runs until 7th February 2027 and examines the career of a painter who worked between two important artistic centres of Renaissance Italy.

Reconstructing a Renaissance Altarpiece

The three panels originally formed a triptych, a type of religious painting consisting of a central image flanked by two wings. Such works were commissioned for churches and private chapels, where they served as devotional objects and demonstrations of the artistic ambitions of their patrons.

Over succeeding centuries, many Renaissance altarpieces were dismantled, removed from their original settings or dispersed among private collections and museums. Their individual panels could subsequently be displayed as independent works, losing much of the relationship between the images originally intended by the artist.

The Previtali triptych provides an example of how those connections can be recovered.

The Museo Villa Bassi Rathgeb holds the panel depicting a bishop saint as part of the collection assembled by Roberto Bassi Rathgeb, an art historian and collector who contributed to renewed scholarly interest in Previtali.

His collection, donated to the municipality of Abano Terme between 1972 and 1980, contains important examples of painting from the Bergamo and Brescia schools.

The collaboration with the Diocese of Bergamo has now made it possible to display the bishop saint alongside the two surviving companion panels from the original altarpiece. Their reunion allows the work to be studied as a complete composition rather than as three separate paintings.

It also offers an opportunity to reassess Previtali’s decisions concerning the relationship between figures, religious symbolism and the architectural arrangement of devotional paintings.

A Pupil of Giovanni Bellini

Andrea Previtali was born around 1480 in Valle Imagna, in the territory of Bergamo, before moving to Venice, where he entered the workshop of Giovanni Bellini.

Bellini was among the most influential painters of the Venetian Renaissance, known for his treatment of colour, light and religious subjects. His workshop trained artists who would help establish the distinctive visual language of sixteenth-century Venetian painting.

Previtali’s connection to his master is documented in an inscription on his 1502 painting Madonna and Child with Donor, now held by the Musei Civici di Padova.

The artist described himself as a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, a declaration that has become an important piece of evidence for reconstructing his early career.

The new exhibition explores that relationship by displaying works by Previtali alongside paintings associated with the artistic environment in which he trained.

Among the loans is Bellini’s Saint Justina, from the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan. Although painted before Previtali’s mature career, it demonstrates the treatment of sacred figures, colour and composition that influenced succeeding generations.

The exhibition also includes works connected with Francesco Bissolo, Girolamo da Santacroce, Palma il Vecchio and Giovanni Busi, known as Cariani.

Together, they illustrate the movement of artistic ideas between Venice, Bergamo and Brescia during a period in which painters increasingly travelled between workshops, cities and patrons.

Venice, Bergamo and the Changing Renaissance

Previtali’s career developed at a time when the artistic traditions of northern Italy were undergoing considerable change.

The Venetian school placed particular emphasis on colour and atmosphere, while painters working in Lombardy drew on different approaches to portraiture, religious narrative and landscape.

Previtali’s paintings reflect both traditions. His subjects included Madonnas, religious gatherings, portraits and landscapes, often combining carefully observed human figures with detailed natural backgrounds.

After returning to Bergamo, he encountered the work of Lorenzo Lotto, whose approach to portraiture and religious painting introduced further stylistic developments.

The exhibition therefore examines Previtali not simply as a follower of Bellini, but as an artist whose work developed through exchanges between different regional schools.

It also includes Renaissance portraits, among them a painting on loan from the Accademia dei Concordi in Rovigo.

A separate section examines the practical techniques employed in Renaissance workshops, using physical and digital displays to explain how artists prepared, constructed and completed their paintings.

Such research has become increasingly important in the study and preservation of Europe’s Old Master paintings, allowing historians to reconstruct relationships between works that have survived in different institutions.

The restoration and presentation of historic collections also forms part of the wider debate about protecting Europe’s cultural heritage.

The Previtali exhibition has been organised by the municipality of Abano Terme in cooperation with the University of Padua and the Italian heritage authorities. It is curated by Raffaele Campion and Barbara Maria Savy.

Visitors will be able to see the reunited triptych at the Museo Villa Bassi Rathgeb from 17th October until 7th February 2027. The exhibition provides a rare chance to examine the three panels together and to understand how a religious commission created more than five centuries ago fitted into the artistic culture of Renaissance northern Italy.

A new exhibition in Belgium brings together a 1956 painting by Paul Delvaux and its original preparatory drawing, revealing how the artist transformed his composition and concealed elements beneath the finished work.

Scientific examination of a painting by Belgian surrealist Paul Delvaux has revealed significant changes to its original composition, including figures and other details concealed beneath layers of paint. The findings are being presented in a new exhibition opening on 16 October at Musée L in Louvain-la-Neuve.

The exhibition, La Ville lunaire II: The Hidden Side of Paul Delvaux’s Painting, examines a work completed in 1956 and held in the museum’s permanent collection. Through X-ray imaging, infrared reflectography and ultraviolet examination, researchers have been able to investigate the artist’s working methods and compare the finished painting with an original preparatory drawing.

The exhibition, which runs until 7 February 2027, follows the acquisition of the drawing by the King Baudouin Foundation in 2024. Its subsequent deposit at Musée L has made it possible to examine the two works together and reconstruct the development of a composition that underwent substantial alterations.

A Painting Concealing Its Own History

Completed in June 1956, La Ville lunaire II depicts a mysterious nocturnal landscape, with a long avenue, buildings, streetlamps and figures arranged within an unsettling architectural setting.

The painting measures approximately 89 by 139 centimetres and was executed in oil on a fibreboard panel. It entered the museum’s collection in 1990 through a bequest from Dr Charles Delsemme.

Its carefully constructed perspective and unusual treatment of space reflect Delvaux’s interest in creating scenes that appear familiar while remaining detached from ordinary reality.

The museum’s collection records describe the work as a strange nocturnal landscape, with wooden barriers and a sequence of streetlamps establishing its distinctive spatial arrangement.

Yet the painting visible today differs considerably from the composition Delvaux originally envisaged.

Earlier technical examinations had already established that important details were covered during the painting process. The new exhibition brings those findings into direct comparison with the preparatory drawing, enabling visitors to see how the artist’s intentions changed.

An auction catalogue published in 2024 identified several elements present in the drawing and concealed in the painting, including a moon in the right-hand sky, a seated figure on the right and two figures wearing robes near the centre.

These changes are significant because they suggest that Delvaux did more than adjust minor details. He altered the population and lighting of the scene, potentially changing how the composition would be experienced by the viewer.

The reasons for those decisions remain uncertain.

How Scientific Technology Reveals Hidden Paintings

Modern conservation techniques allow researchers to examine works of art without removing the paint that covers earlier stages of their creation.

Infrared reflectography can reveal underdrawings and certain changes concealed beneath surface paint, depending on the materials used by the artist. X-ray imaging can detect differences in the composition of pigments and structures below the visible surface.

Ultraviolet examination provides further information about surface materials and alterations, including some later interventions.

When combined with documentary evidence, these methods help researchers distinguish between an artist’s initial design, revisions made during painting and changes introduced after completion.

The Musée L exhibition uses these techniques to investigate what art historians call pentimenti — visible or detectable alterations that record an artist changing their mind during the creative process.

The preparatory drawing, measuring approximately 28 by 45 centimetres, provides an additional reference point. Executed in ink and pencil, it contains elements that were subsequently revised or painted over in the final composition.

Displayed alongside the finished work, it allows visitors to follow the artist’s decisions from the preliminary design to the version that eventually entered the museum’s collection.

The technical findings also demonstrate the importance of preserving preparatory studies, which can contain information absent from completed paintings.

Paul Delvaux and the Belgian Surrealist Tradition

Born in Antheit in 1897, Paul Delvaux became one of Belgium’s best-known twentieth-century painters, developing a distinctive artistic language associated with surrealism.

His paintings frequently depict classical buildings, railway stations, deserted streets and solitary figures, often arranged in environments where architectural precision contrasts with an atmosphere of uncertainty.

He was influenced by the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico, whose deserted urban spaces and dramatic perspectives helped establish the visual language of metaphysical painting.

Delvaux’s relationship with de Chirico has been examined extensively by art historians, including Joël Roucloux, whose study of La Ville lunaire II analysed its architectural perspective, shadows and the psychological effect of its composition.

The painting’s apparently moonlit setting is particularly interesting in light of the concealed moon identified by technical examination.

The absence of that celestial body from the final visible composition changes the relationship between the painting’s title and its visual content, leaving the viewer to interpret the source of its unusual illumination.

This approach distinguishes Delvaux from other Belgian surrealists, including René Magritte, whose work frequently relied on recognisable objects placed in logically contradictory situations.

For Delvaux, architecture, perspective and the arrangement of human figures were equally important in constructing a world that appears coherent but resists conventional interpretation.

A New Examination of a Familiar Work

The exhibition forms part of Musée L’s programme devoted to research into its permanent collections, rather than a conventional retrospective of the artist’s career.

Its central purpose is to explain how a single painting developed, from its first drawn composition through successive revisions to its completed form.

The research has been supported by the Jacqueline Delcourt-Nonkels Fund, managed by the King Baudouin Foundation.

For visitors, the opportunity is to examine not only a painting by one of Belgium’s leading surrealists, but also the evidence of the artistic decisions that shaped it.

The exhibition is open at Musée L in Louvain-la-Neuve from 16 October 2026 to 7 February 2027. By presenting the original drawing, technical images and finished painting together, the museum offers a detailed examination of Delvaux’s methods and the changes he made to one of his most carefully constructed nocturnal scenes.