Mattia Preti piece purchased by Gozo ministry second most expensive ever

Gozo minister Anton Refalo has not yet answered MaltaToday’s questions on the value of his art collection and whether he owns any Mattia Preti paintings. 

Instead, Refalo decided to speak about the controversial purchase of a Preti masterpiece by his ministry in parliament on Monday evening when he confirmed the purchase of the painting for €371,233 for the as-yet unopened Gozo Museum.

He also claimed that he had the blessing of Heritage Malta and the finance ministry for the purchase of what is the second most expensive Preti painting in history.

MaltaToday revealed last week that the ministry had purchased Preti’s ‘Daniel Interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream’ in a Sotheby’s auction at Refalo’s behest despite the ministry only had a budget of €50,000 for such acquisitions.

The wisdom of the purchase has been questioned due to the fact that Heritage Malta had first said it would not have considered the acquisition. The provenance is of an unknown, private collection in London, whose appraisal cited by Sotheby’s was that of art critics Keith Scibberas and Vittorio Sgarbi, the Italian personality and former minister.

The painting – which according to a 2013 catalogue belonged to Collezione Nobili in Milan, Italy – had gone on sale for the same price some 17 years ago but was not purchased by anyone.  

Experts said this drove the painting’s price down from an estimate between €280,00 and €425,000 to between €190,000 and €280,000. However the Gozo ministry still decided to fork out €371,233, well above what Sotheby’s was estimating to sell the painting for.  

Mattia Preti’s ‘Daniel Interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream’ was bought for a staggering €371,233, outstripping Heritage Malta’s own acquisition spend

Refalo claimed that the painting was bought for a fraction of what its “companion piece” sold for. However, Refalo omitted the fact that the painting he was making reference to - David playing the Harp before King Saul - is roughly 1 metre bigger. The painting sold for just over €2 million.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday, Refalo said that – contrary to what Nationalist MP Chris Said had said – Heritage Malta had only said it would not consider purchasing the painting because of the number of Mattia Preti works already in its collection. “But Heritage Malta agreed that the painting would suit the Gozo Museum well, especially since no Mattia Preti work had as yet been earmarked for the museum,” he said.

The minister said that Heritage Malta had ultimately agreed that the ministry could bid up to a maximum of €350,000 for the painting, provided the ministry could guarantee its provenance and authenticity beforehand. The ministry of finance had signed off on the purchase as well, he said.

Refalo said that even academic Keith Sciberras had attested to the piece’s structure, composition and value.

That came as no surprise to many in the industry, as Sciberras had already, in 2013, co-authored an official catalogue with controversial Italian art critic Vittorio Sgarbi on the occasion of a Preti exhibition held in Milan. Sotheby’s themselves used excerpts of that same 2013 exhibition catalogue – ‘Il Cavalier Calabrese, Mattia Preti, tra Caravaggio e Luca Giordano’, by Sciberras and Sgarbi, as reference in their online listing ahead of the auction.

“We followed Heritage Malta’s instructions and even managed to come in below our budget as we bought the painting for €320,000,” Refalo insisted. But he conceded that, with transport and insurance added on, the total cost to bring the 153cm by 196cm oil on canvas painting to Malta rose to €371,233.

The bid for the Preti masterpiece, painted in early part of the 1670s, was made over the phone and was purchased through Sotheby’s New York.

The purchase is one of the largest single purchases by a Maltese ministry for any one painting. Heritage Malta’s own list of acquisitions since 2014, provided by the authority itself, is of €388,000 alone, and that includes the €75,000 acquisition for a Preti self-portrait last year.

Refalo is himself a collector, and is said to have lobbied uncompromisingly for the painting when initial doubts were expressed on the acquisition. 

Sotheby’s described the Preti painting acquired by Refalo’s ministry as a broadly painted work which has been restored and should be hung in its current state. The canvas has a recent lining applied with glue. Under ultraviolet light, Sotheby’s say that one can see retouching in the darker colors of the ghostly figure in the centre. The remaining faces are in good condition, showing only a few spots of retouching.