Mantegna's "Dead Christ" triggers row over exhibition

MILAN, Aug 24 (Reuters) A Milan gallery has refused to loan Andrea Mantegna's influential painting, the ''Dead Christ'', to an exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the artist's death, triggering a row between organisers and government.

The painting, found in Mantegna's studio after he died in 1506, depicts the body of Christ laid out on a slab from the perspective of a mourner at his feet -- one of the first such treatments of this subject.

Mantegna was one of the foremost northern Italian painters of the 15th century and was a master of the techniques of foreshortening and perspective.

The Brera art gallery in Milan says the ''Dead Christ'', which is in tempera on canvas, is too delicate to be moved to Mantua, which wanted it for an exhibition in the town where Mantegna worked for the Gonzaga family from 1460 until his death.

Vittorio Sgarbi, chairman of the exhibition committee and a culture undersecretary in the former centre-right government, accused the Brera gallery of lying about the painting's condition and called on Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli to intervene. But Rutelli said he would not overturn the opinion of art experts.

''I suspect it's true that it's too fragile,'' said Jennifer Fletcher, a fellow of London's Courtauld Institute and an expert in north-eastern Italian painting of the period.

She said dangers could come from temperature changes or accidental damage in transit and that given the proximity of Mantua to Milan, a couple of hours' drive by car, the gallery might feel the risk was not be warranted.

The exhibition also failed to secure from a private Venice gallery a portrait of Saint Sebastian painted by Mantegna in his later life, which is currently being restored.

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