The frescoes of the Villa of Livia and Max Liebermann’s reception of the antique

Accompanying programme of the exhibition Max Liebermann. An Impressionist from Berlin

Speaker: Agnese Pergola, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome
Moderator: Alice Cazzola, curator of the exhibition Max Liebermann. An Impressionist from Berlin

Max Liebermann travelled to the Italian capital on the occasion of the International Art Exhibition in Rome in 1911. On this trip, he visited the Villa of Livia near Prima Porta, where he admired the underground mural of an idyllic garden filled with a wide variety of plants and birds. Back at his summer house on Wannsee near Berlin, he immediately set to work and created his own interpretation in the loggia, parts of which have survived to this day.

The frescoes from Livia’s villa are now kept in the National Roman Museum, in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, and have given rise to a collaboration with the Museo Nazionale Romano. In conversation with the curator Alice Cazzola, the archaeologist Agnese Pergola, responsible for the museum at Palazzo Massimo, will trace the history of the two thousand year old frescoes and their discovery in 1863 up to their relocation to the museum. In response, Alice Cazzola will comment on the phenomenon of the reception of the antique in Max Liebermann’s work.

Image: The painted garden from the Villa of Livia, detail south wall, 40-20 BC, Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo, Rome © Museo Nazionale Romano, photo: Simona Sansonetti