ARTE – The Leonardo Enigma: The Flora Bust (2020)
English | Documentary | Size: 836 MB
An art scandal that was unprecedented in museum history. A curator who embarks on a clue-finding mission. Can the mystery surrounding the Flora bust finally be uncovered?
In 1909, Wilhelm von Bode procured a bust of the Greek goddess of flowers “Flora” for the Berlin sculpture collection, which he took to be an original work by Leonardo da Vinci. The art scandal that he thereby evoked in Europe was unprecedented in museum history. Was the bust really a work by the ingenious artist Leonardo da Vinci? Or was it a work by the English sculptor Richard Cockle Lucas from the mid-19th century?
Perhaps no museum acquisition during the Wilhelmine Empire caused as much public sensation as Wilhelm von Bode’s purchase of the wax bust of the goddess Flora for the Berlin Sculpture Collection in July 1909. In the following two years alone, over 700 articles and essays appeared in the international press and art historical journals. Their content centered on the question of authenticity: Was the bust-as von Bode claimed-a work by the artistic genius Leonardo da Vinci or his workshop, or did it originate from the English wax sculptor Richard Cockle Lucas in the mid-19th century? Had Wilhelm Bode, therefore, made the right or wrong purchase decision? To this day, generations of art historians have grappled with the attribution of the Flora bust.
Generations of art historians have racked their brains over this issue, even up to the present day. To coincide with a major “Klartext” exhibition on the history of the Bode Museum in Berlin on November 2020, curator Neville Rowley re-examines the Flora case. He reopens the art thriller and embarks on a clue-finding mission. By laboratory tests using up-to-date technology, will he succeed in proving that it is in fact a bust by the Renaissance genius?
His search for clues takes him to London, to the Warburg Institute and the Bonhams auction house, as well as to the Scottish Highlands and the Louvre in Paris. There, Leonardo expert Vincent Delieuvin draws a compelling analogy between the Mona Lisa and the Flora bust. The documentary tells an art mystery story set in the world of Leonardo research: Will it be possible to prove, using the latest laboratory technology, that it is indeed a bust of the Renaissance genius?
A Film by Margarete Kreuzer ; Producer: Nalan Kahriman ; Medea Film Factory / ZDF Production with ARTE and NordMedia Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH
Narrator: Claudia Michelsen
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