Media Contact: A. J. Fox · (510) 642-0365 · afox@berkeley.edu BAMPFA Unveils Newly Restored Highlights of European Old Masters Collection in Old Masters in a New Light On View September 19–December 16, 2018 Exhibition Features Recent Restoration of The Capture of Christ, Newly Attributed to Paolo Veneziano (Berkeley, CA) August 23, 2018—A selection of recently restored works from the Old Masters collection of the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) goes on view in Berkeley this fall, showcasing among other highlights a painting that has been newly attributed to the fourteenth-century Venetian master Paolo Veneziano. Old Masters in a New Light: Rediscovering the European Collection offers a fresh look at BAMPFA’s extensive holdings of European art, following a multiyear initiative of conservation and scholarship that has brought new vitality to this important area of the collection. As part of this initiative, BAMPFA has acquired several important works by European Old Masters, including notable additions in the area of eighteenth-century painting that go on view this fall. While the University of California, Berkeley has been collecting European art since 1872, it is only recently that a concerted effort has been made to document, restore, and illuminate through scholarship this area of BAMPFA’s encyclopedic collection. Old Masters in a New Light represents the first major exhibition to showcase the results of this initiative, which has engaged the participation of nationally distinguished art historians and conservation specialists to accurately date each work, improve attributions, and conserve and restore works to the best possible condition. During this process, new research by the Yale art historian Christopher Platts has determined that a painting in BAMPFA’s collection—The Capture of Christ (c. 1345), previously attributed to an unknown artist—is in fact the work of Paolo Veneziano, the preeminent painter of fourteenth-century Venice. The work depicts the moment when Judas betrays Christ with a kiss to the cheek, identifying him to the helmeted soldiers sent by the high priest to arrest him. It has been newly restored from the