Notes on Johann Anton Ramboux’s Letters to Carlo Pini, with a Focus on Spinello Aretino’s Olivetan Polyptych

Abstract

The essay analyses an unpublished collection of letters sent between 1839 and 1845 by Johann Anton Ramboux to Carlo Pini, which shed a light on the relationships between scholars, restorers and dealers active in Tuscany and the German-speaking area, as well as the role played by the Institute of Fine Arts in Siena, of which Pini was the conservator. The correspondence also demonstrates how tools such drawings, tracing papers and prints of translations served both a documentary and a commercial function. Particular attention is devoted to the events connected to the Spinello Aretino’s Olivetan polyptych, as a case study of the process of dismemberment and circulation of artworks by ‘primitives’ after the Napoleonic suppressions, amidst demands for museum preservation and international market. The article thus highlights the role of Ramboux and Pini as intermediaries within a European network of connoisseurs and collectors, underscoring the shift from a Romantic sensibility to a historical-philological approach.