Getty Center
The event on Nov. 19: An invitation-only cocktail party preview of “Caravaggio: Masterpieces from the Galleria Borghese” at the Getty Center, followed by an intimate, flower-filled dinner at the hilltop museum’s restaurant. Fashion patron: The Romebased Fendi apparel and accessories label, a subsidiary of French fashion-brand powerhouse fashion house LVMH. This event marked Fendi’s first foray into the Los Angeles museum scene — and the beginning of a three-year partnership with Rome’s Galleria Borghese to support the recently created Caravaggio Research Institute, which is working to compile a digital database focusing on the painter’s life and works. Money for the museum: Fendi, which just a few years ago spent $2.4 million to restore Rome’s historic Trevi Fountain, is donating 1.2 million euros ($1.4 million
U.S. at current exchange rates) to the Galleria Borghese’s efforts. Standouts wearing the brand: Stylist/social media star Erica Pelosini, interior designer Estee Stanley and documentary filmmakers and sisters Ena and Ines Talakic.
Quote: “A luxury brand is like a diamond: It has many facets, and each one of them shines in a [different] way in order to tell a beautiful story,” Fendi Chief Executive Pietro Beccari said. Also: The Getty exhibition, which runs through the end of February, marks the first time the three Caravaggio paintings — “Boy with a Basket of Fruit,” “Saint Jerome” and “David With the Head of Goliath” have been displayed together in the U.S. — and the first time the Galleria Borghese has lent all three at the same time. “And it will probably be the last time,” quipped Galleria Borghese director Anna Coliva, who noted that the three pieces comprise half the gallery’s holdings of Caravaggio paintings.