In 2017 the antiquarian Marcello Violante donated this collection to the Federico Zeri Foundation. It documents the Chaucer Fine Arts Gallery, founded in 1977 and for a long time directed by Violante.
The collection is comprised of 1,732 photo objects, largely silver gelatin prints, diacolors and colour prints (chromogen prints, polaroid cibachromes), displayed in 10 containers and arranged by artists in alphabetical order. A further container has analogical photographic material that still requires sorting, and 14 cd-roms of digital images.
It gives us a picture of the art gallery’s business, especially as regards works of Italian painting from the 15th to the 20th century, and 17th-18th century foreign painting, chiefly Flemish, though also English, French, Spanish and German.
Versos often bear handwritten notes on attribution, subjects depicted and the Chaucer Fine Arts Gallery catalogue in which the photographs were published.
Along with these photos are over 700 hard copy documents (catalogue factsheets, photocopies, correspondence with other scholars, expertises).
The last part of the donation consists of some 2,000 catalogues of English auction houses ranging from 1998 to 2016 (Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonhams) and catalogues to exhibitions organized by the Chaucer Fine Arts Gallery from the late 1970s to 2010 (including joint ventures with the Roman Galleria Gasparrini).
To explore the Chauser Fine Art Archive you can use the online catologue tool Explore the collections.