When the Duke of Lucca partially paid his gambling debts selling many of the works in the Palazzo Ducale at an auction in London in 1836 the city faced its most serious cultural loss. Masterpieces from churches and private collections were lost forever.Lucca was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1847 and the Lucchese painter Michele Ridolphi addressed a pleading to the Grand Duke Leopoldo II to refund citizens of this great loss. The Duke sent Lucca 82 works from the Medici Collection and they are now displayed at the Mansi Palazzo in Lucca.This beautiful painting is of Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Ventura Salimbeni  1568-1613

Hannalie works with the captured image. Altered, reimagined and reinterpreted. Using mainly vintage photographs sourced from flea markets and even from her own family archives. These are used as is, or blown up to a larger scale. Altered with tire inner tube inlays and hand-embroidered detailing drawn with thread. Hannalie’s work is populated by people, masks and sometimes floral arrangements. What is shown and what is hidden become interdependent elements of visual storytelling, thus “a new fantasy emerges in a world clinging to the need to believe in the magic of innocent aspiration.” https://hannalietaute.com/

Works of Italian painter Adolfo Lorenzetti presented beautifully in this exhibition in the church of San Benedetto in Gottell