The ideal beauty of the Sappho sculpted by Antonio Canova for the collector Tancredi Falletti di Barolo, exhibited in Turin in 1820, constitutes one of the oldest and most prestigious works in our Museum.
The collection spans over a century, from the late 1700s, represented by the watercolors and temperas of Giuseppe Pietro Bagetti and Giovanni Battista De Gubernatis, up to the early 1900s, with the celebrated works of Tranquillo Cremona, Enrico Junck, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, and Angelo Morbelli, alongside sculptures by Davide Calandra, Edoardo Rubino, and Leonardo Bistolfi.
The first purchase for the “modern collection of paintings” was Pietro Micca made in 1858 by Andrea Gastaldi, one of the greatest artists of Italy’s Romantic age. Several important donations, which took place during the 19th century and afterward, allowed the Museum to acquire considerable groups of work, especially landscape paintings, which are a strength of the Museum’s collection: from the first bequest of watercolors by Giovanni Battista De Gubernatis (1835) to the donation of paintings and sketches by Massimo d’Azeglio (1876), from the bequest of works by the artist from Reggio Emilia Antonio Fontanesi (1905) and by Vittorio Avondo (1911) up to the donation of paintings by Enrico Reycend (1952).
Distinctive works in the collection include—just to name a few—Ivy and the Portrait of Benedetto Junck by Tranquillo Cremona, After the Duel by Antonio Mancini, Red Cheeks by Giovanni Fattori; plus the peaceful vision of Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo Mirror of Life (That which the First One Does, the Others Follow), focused on the rhythm and harmony of Nature as sheep walk along the banks of the Curone River. A contrasting work is the sensual and unsettling beauty of Siren (Green Abyss) painted by Giulio Aristide Sartorio in 1893, during his first visit to London; in fact, this work is inspired by English Pre-Raphaelite culture and impassioned literary circles in Rome.
There are also numerous works in marble, bronze, plaster, terracotta, and wax included in the collection, thus confirming the place of prestige sculpture occupied during the entire century: some of the most important works include those by Vincenzo Vela, Odoardo Fantachiotti, Davide Calandra, Giacomo Ginotti, and Edoardo Rubino, as well as works in wax by Medardo Rosso, Aetas aurea and Enfant au sein, donations made in 1914.
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