The Brukenthal Exclusive temporary exhibition, in which the painting The Man With the Blue Hat by Jan van Eyck and four other masterpieces by Titian, Veronese and Hans Memling are exhibited, was opened on Wednesday night at the Dacia-Romania Palace of Bucharest.

The event was attended by the Culture minister Lucian Romascanu, the presidential adviser Sergiu Nistor, the manager of the Brukenthal National Museum Alexandru Chituta, the AGERPRES National News Agency managing director Claudia Nicolae, museum managers from Bucharest, ambassadors.

Ioana Ciocan, Art Safari CEO and commissioner of Romania at the Venice Biennale, stated that through this exhibition, made in partnership with the Brukenthal Museum, she wants to show that there are also extremely important works in Romania, namely, works from the Italian Renaissance. Ioana Ciocan specified that bringing the works from the Brukenthal Museum to Bucharest meant a sustained effort.

"When I say sustained effort, I refer to the difficulties we have in transporting art from one place to another, to the insurance difficulties, because here we are talking about 75 million euros, and all these things would not have been possible if, in the tenth year of its existence, for the eleventh edition, Mr. Lucian Romascanu had not given a ministerial order by which Art Safari would be declared a strategic programme for Romania. (...) If for Vienna, Paris, London, Rome, Stockholm, Lisbon, Beijing, all these exhibitions are normal, you know that here it is a little more difficult to be normal. What Art Safari is trying to do, and now with the help of the Brukenthal Museum, is to put Romania, to put our country next to the other capitals of Europe," stated the CEO of Art Safari.

"For Sibiu, this exhibition means a lot, because it is the first exhibition of the Brukenthal Museum in Bucharest with these masterpieces also in Romania, and for Bucharest it is a show, it is an exclusivity that we, the Sibiu-based, and the Brukenthal National Museum together with Art Safari and with the help of the Ministry of Culture we are doing in Bucharest for the Bucharest public, for the Bucharest specialists, for the Bucharest students, for tourists who come to Bucharest, not to come all the way to Sibiu and for ten days to come to Art Safari and see a top ten exhibition," the manager of the Brukenthal National Museum Alexandru Chituta declared for AGERPRES.

During the opening ceremony of the exhibition, the manager of the Brukenthal Museum presented the minister Lucian Romascanu and the presidential adviser Sergiu Nistor with a portrait of Baron Brukenthal made by the artist Sofia Frankl, and the CEO of Art Safari, Ioana Ciocan, a diploma of excellence.

Lucian Romascanu said that everything that is done at the Ministry of Culture is done "with the humility due to art and culture".

"We have a lot of theater festivals that we finance, we have cinema, we have opera, the great George Enescu Festival is coming, we didn't have plastic art. And suddenly, starting last year, the credit goes exclusively to the Art Safari team for what they did in the 9-10 years until then, we started to finance plastic art," said the minister, stating that this year two art fairs will also be financed.

The minister added that the exhibited works, "five absolutely unique and sensational paintings", represent "a superb example of public-private partnership", the Brukenthal Museum belonging to the Ministry of Culture, and Art Safari being a private project, the two together achieving "extremely beautiful things for those who love art".

The Brukenthal Exclusive temporary exhibition can be visited at the Dacia-Romania Palace between April 20-30.

Five of the most important masterpieces of universal art will be admired for a short time at Art Safari, in the heart of Bucharest: "The man with the blue hat" - Jan van Eyck (approx. 1390-1441), "Ecce Homo - Tiziano Vecellio / Titian (1488/90-1576), "Head of a Child" - Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) and "Portrait of a Man Reading" and "Portrait of a Woman Praying" - Hans Memling (1430/33- 1494).

The work The Man With the Blue Hat/Omul cu tichie albastra is the only one created by the Flemish artist in Romania and one of the 20 works attributed to him worldwide. The work, painted around 1430, was purchased in the 18th century by baron Samuel von Brukenthal.AGERPRES(RO - author: Petronius Craiu, editor: Antonia Nita; EN - editor: Maria Voican)