In 2018 art historian Luisa Vertova presented the Federico Zeri Foundation with the archive she created when working as an Old Master Paintings Specialist for Christie's, the auction house. The gesture was in memory of her long acquaintance with Federico Zeri dating from the late 1940s. She was an assistant to Bernard Berenson at the time, and met Zeri at meetings held in Berensen’s library outside Florence.
The archive contains a valuable collection of art books, around 130 auction catalogues, almost 900 photos and over 4,000 documents mainly compiled between the early Seventies and the mid Eighties. Besides precious insights into private collecting and the art market, the collection chronicles some famous events in the auction house history: from sale of Titian’s Atteone divorato dai cani (now in the National Gallery, London) down to the 1982 Florence exhibition of the Leonardo da Vinci Leicester Codex.
Most of the photographs – gelatin silver prints and negative film – are of works of 19th-century Italian art as documented by major photographic studios: Cooper of London, Boccardi of Rome, Luigi Artini of Florence.
The Federico Zeri Foundation has undertaken a complete mapping of the photos, documents and books. The entire collection will sooon result as an archival description consultable online.