Heritage Malta purchase 16 lots from Borg Olivier collection for national collection
Heritage Malta has acquired a number of objects from the auction held at the house of Malta’s former Prime Minister the late Giorgio Borg Olivier & Mrs. Alexandra Borg Olivier nee' Mattei on the 27 June.
23 July 2010, 12:00am
Matthew Vella
Matthew Vella
1 min read
The sixteen lots purchased include a pair of still life paintings by Antonio Tibaldi (1635-1675) whose works rarely feature in public collections. The Italian artist is considered to be a follower of Francesco Fieravino (1610-1660) better known as il Maltese. This acquisition has already attracted the attention of the international art community and is considered a significant addition to the National Collection.
Other items include a portrait of Bishop Alpheran (circle of Francesco Zahra 1701-1773); a caricature by Giorgio Preca; a gouache painting of the monument to Sir Alexander Ball a number of portraits and an Apollo 13 mission patch and fragment of heat shield presented to Dr Borg Olivier by its astronauts.
Whereas provenance is considered a significant factor when deciding to acquire such objects Heritage Malta, before proceeding, invariably assesses the artistic, historic and ethnographic merits of each individual item.
Following light restoration and cleaning processes on the items acquired, Heritage Malta will present these to the general public in an exhibition to be announced shortly.
Matthew Vella, a freelance journalist at MaltaToday, was formerly executive editor at Malt...
Ian George Walker •
If the "Apollo 13 mission patch and fragment of heat shield" were presented to Dr Borg Olivier in his capacity as PM, they belonged to the state and were not part of his estate.
At least, that is the normal practise.
