The Villa Bassi Rathgeb Museum presents LEONOR FINI AND THE BASSI RATHGEB GRAPHIC COLLECTION. Signs and inventions from the Renaissance to the 20th century, an exhibition that offers the public a journey through 80 works including drawings and prints, created between the 16th and 20th centuries.
The exhibition, curated by Giovanni Bianchi, Raffaele Campion, Barbara Maria Savy, and Federica Stevanin, brings to the halls of the Villa Bassi Rathgeb Museum a path that spans approximately five centuries, from the Renaissance to the second half of the 20th century, which includes 55 works from the graphic collection of the Museum, alongside a corpus of works recently donated by Ambassador Ugo Gabriele de Mohr.
The first part of the journey, in the evocative spaces of the hypogeum, is divided into 7 thematic sections: among the most valuable drawings is the Study for the little sleeping Cupid recently restored to the authorship of Bernardino Campi, the sheet with Five Greyhounds, signed by Giandomenico Tiepolo, two “macabre” Capriccios of skeletons produced by Paolo Vincenzo Bonomini, and two projects from Giacomo Quarenghi's Russian period, representing architectural drawing and interpreting Neoclassicism between the 17th and 18th centuries.
The journey continues with a Scene from “Il Bravo” by Francesco Hayez, the leading exponent of Romanticism, several landscapes by Giovanni Migliara and contemporary artists from the Lombard environment, and a section dedicated to the rich core of etchings by the Dutch Adriaen van Ostade, known for vibrant genre scenes. Additionally, etchings from drawings and paintings by Titian, Jacopo Bassano, Guercino, Giuseppe Zais, Pietro Longhi. The journey concludes with a selection of works by Cesare Tallone and Rinaldo Agazzi, highlighting the Museum's role as a guardian and promoter of Lombard artistic culture, in line with the history of its collection.
The second part of the journey, set up in the frescoed rooms of the noble floor, is entirely dedicated to the corpus of graphic works by Leonor Fini, created throughout the 20th century: 24 works on paper including photolithographs and engravings. Although close to the Surrealists, Fini's painting draws inspiration from Italian Mannerism, Flemish masters, and German Romanticism, while always remaining autonomous from dominant trends. The Graphic Compositions, present in the exhibition, outline the artist's poetics that, while in dialogue with the main movements and protagonists of her time, has always remained free from influences and categories.
In order to trace the figure of Leonor Fini among visual arts, music, and theater in the exhibition, thanks to the collaboration with the Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts of the Venice Biennale, the original scene sketch of Orpheus, executed by the artist for the one-act play by Roberto Lupi presented in 1951 at the International Festival of Contemporary Music, will be displayed.
