ZAGREB, June 22, 2018 – After 13 years of restoration, the St. Martin Polyptych created by Italian Renaissance master painter Vittore Carpaccio for the Cathedral of St. Anastasia in Zadar at the end of the 15th century was presented to the public in the coastal town.
Also presented at the Permanent Exhibition of Ecclesiastical Art was the 60-year activity of the Zadar Department for Conservation, whose head Jadranka Baković won this year’s Vicko Andrić Award, which the Culture Ministry gives for outstanding achievement in the preservation of Croatia’s cultural heritage.
Baković was awarded for the research, conservation and restoration of the polyptych composed of six paintings, including the patron saints of Zadar, St. Anastasia and St. Simeon.
The conservation and restoration project was financed by the Culture Ministry and initially also by the Permanent Exhibition of Ecclesiastical Art at Zadar’s Benedictine Monastery of St. Mary.
In her work, Baković was advised by Florentine restoration masters Stefano Scarpelli and the late Giovanni Marussich. The work was completed last year.
The Zadar Department for Conservation, opened in 1957, has conserved and restored over 800 works of art by both Croatian and foreign masters from the 13th through the 20th centuries, including Paolo Veneziano, Juraj Ćulinović, Blaž Jurjev of Trogir, Petar Jordanić, Juraj Petrović, Vittore Carpaccio, Petar de Riboldis, Mateo Moronzon, Girolamo and Francesco da Santacroce, Domenico Tintoretto, Jacopo Palma junior, Zorzi Ventura, Mateo Ponzoni, Carlo Ridolfi, Bernardino Ricciardi, Antonio Carneo, Giovanni B. A. Pitteri, Bartolomeo Litterini, Francesco Salghetti-Drioli, Celestin Medović, Vlaho Bukovac and Ferdo Kovačević.
Among the restored works, special mention goes to the Chest of Saint Simeon, made in Zadar in 1380 by Francis of Milan. The chest is the most important work of medieval goldsmith’s craft preserved in Croatia.
