LONDON.- An historic event is taking place with the unveiling of the reconstructed Petrobelli Altarpiece by Paolo Veronese. The four known, surviving pieces have been brought together at Dulwich Picture Gallery, reuniting them for the first time since the 1780s.

Originally painted around 1565 for Antonio & Girolamo Petrobelli, it was one of the largest altarpieces ever produced in Italy during the 16th century. It resided in their family chapel; San Francesco at Lendinara, in the north-east of Italy for around two hundred years until 1785 when the Order of the Franciscan Minor Conventual Friars was suppressed and the church and convent were closed down and destroyed.

The painting was cut up and sold in pieces, described as being ‘sold in quarters, as one does with butcher’s meat’. The reunion at Dulwich will re-evaluate an important work that has been much abused and forgotten.

One piece was snapped up by Noel Desenfans (a Dulwich Picture Gallery founder) in London in February 1795 and the other three known surviving fragments found homes in the National Gallery of Scotland, the National Gallery of Canada and the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas.

The Dulwich and Edinburgh fragments have been previously reunited at Dulwich in 1981, but the Ottawa painting has not been seen in Europe alongside the other two pictures since the 18th century.

The reconstructed altarpiece provides the first opportunity in modern times for direct visual comparison of the paintings and the display will also be the first exhibition uniquely devoted to the work of Veronese in the United Kingdom.