Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website From 2 March 2021 Palazzo Reale in Milan is hosting the first major exhibition devoted to ‘The Ladies of Art’, extraordinarily talented women artists active between the 16th and 17th century, who can finally be seen in all their splendour.
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  • From 2 March 2021 Palazzo Reale in Milan is hosting the first major exhibition devoted to ‘The Ladies of Art’, extraordinarily talented women artists active between the 16th and 17th century, who can finally be seen in all their splendour.
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april 26, 2021 - Palazzo Reale Milano

From 2 March 2021 Palazzo Reale in Milan is hosting the first major exhibition devoted to ‘The Ladies of Art’, extraordinarily talented women artists active between the 16th and 17th century, who can finally be seen in all their splendour.


Over 130 works by 34 artists, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia

Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Giovanna Garzoni and many others, which tell the incredible stories of talented, “modern” women.

From 2 March to 25 July 2021, the rooms of Palazzo Reale in Milan are hosting a unique exhibition devoted to the iconic women artists who lived between the 16th and 17th century: Artemisia Gentileschi, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Fede Galizia, Giovanna Garzoni are just a few of them.Promoted by Milan City Council–Culture and produced by Palazzo Reale and Arthemisia, with the support of Fondazione Bracco, the exhibition is part of the programme I talenti delle donne (Women’s Talents) organized by the Department of Culture of the Milan City Council. The programme is dedicated to the feminine universe, focusing throughout 2020 and until April 2021 on their works, their priorities and their skills. 

The show ‘Le Signore dell’Arte. Storie di donne tra ’500 e ’600’ (The Ladies of Art. Stories of women between the 16th and 17th century), rediscovers the art and the extraordinary lives of 34 different women artists through over 130 works. Testimonies of intense, lively all-female creativity, in a unique exhibition that tells the inspiring stories of women who were already “modern”.

They include celebrated artists, others less familiar to the general public, and new discoveries, like the Roman noblewoman Claudia del Bufalo, who is making her debut in this story of female art. There are works on show for the first time, such as the Madonna dell’Itria Altarpiece by Sofonisba Anguissola, executed in Paternò, Sicily, in 1578, which has never left the island before; the Immaculate Madonna and St Francesco Borgia altarpiece of 1663 by Rosalia Novelli, the only work attributed with certainty to the artist, which is leaving the church of Gesù di Casa Professa in Palermo for the first time, and the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of 1576, by Lucrezia Quistelli, from the parish church of Silvano Pietra in the province of Pavia.

 

The works selected for the exhibition, under the curatorship of Anna Maria Bava, Gioia Mori and Alain Tapié, come from no less than 67 different lenders, including many Italian museums, namely the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Museo di Capodimonte, Pinacoteca di Brera, Castello Sforzesco, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Galleria Borghese, Musei Reali in Turin, the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna, and international institutions such as the Musée des Beaux Arts in Marseille and Muzeum Narodowe in Poznan, Poland.

The most famous of the heroines showcased at Palazzo Reale is Artemisia Gentileschi: daughter of the painter Orazio, icon of female awareness and rebellion, artist and businesswoman. Artemisia’s art rivalled that of her male counterparts and success enabled the artist to rise above her female social status. Indeed, she exemplified the struggle against the authority and artistic power of her father, against the restrictions imposed on women.

 

Originally from Cremona, Sofonisba Anguissola resided at the court of Philip II in Madrid, then moved to Sicily –where Van Dyck came to visit her in 1624 – after marrying the nobleman Fabrizio Moncada, and later to Genoa where she was married a second time, to Orazio Lomellini. On display are her paintings The Chess Game of 1555 (lent by the Muzeum Narodowe in Poznan, Poland) and the above- mentioned Madonna dell’Itria Altarpiece (1578), which has undergone major restoration, carried out with the collaboration of the Museo Civico Ala Ponzone in Cremona.

 

Lavinia Fontana was from Bologna and the daughter of the Mannerist painter Prospero Fontana. At the age of 25 she married the artist Giovan Paolo Zappi from Imola, on condition that she could continue to paint, actually making her husband her assistant. She has no less than 14 works on display in the show, including Self-portrait in the Studio (1579) from the Uffizi, the Consecration to the Virgin (1599) from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, and various paintings of mythological subjects which possess a rare sensuality.

 

Elisabetta Sirani was another Bolognese painter. The exhibition features her powerful canvases depicting female courage and rebellion against male violence, namely Portia Wounding Her Thigh (1664) and Thymoclea Kills the Captain of Alexander the Great (1659) from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples. Ginevra Cantofoli is present with Young Woman in Oriental Dress (2nd half of 17th century); Fede Galizia, with the iconic Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1596); and Giovanna Garzoni, another extremely modern woman who lived between Venice, Naples, Paris and Rome, with her rare and precious works on parchment.

 

THE EXHIBITION

The Ladies of Art exhibition explores, in 5 sections, the extraordinary talents of women artists who were the daughters, wives and sisters of painters, and sometimes even nuns…  It also tells their personal stories and considers the role they played in the society of their day; the success some of them achieved at the great international courts; their ability to relate to others, to stand out and to establish themselves, sometimes becoming actual businesswomen; and their knowing how to manage their ideals and diverse lifestyles. Some are famous, but the show also spotlights a group of young female talents who, though their stories and career paths differed, show that the role acquired by women during the 16th and 17th century was not limited to exceptional cases, but constituted a phenomenon that embraced the whole of

Italy. 

Each of these female artists has a compelling story that tells of travels through Italy and Europe or a cloistered existence, short-lived careers or almost centenarian lives, prolific or limited artistic output, transgressive or modest behaviour...

The female artist’s keen eye perceptively analyzed every subject, as can be seen in the uncompromising self-portraits that reveal an awareness of their role as artist; the portraits of extraordinary psychological depth; the heroines of antiquity symbolic of rebellion and inner strength, and the historic mythological and allegorical figures. It is also evident in the naturalistic and symbolic still lifes of flowers, fruits and animals, and the religious and mystical scenes evoking the complex debate of the period.

The mysteries of the psyche, female virtues, ordinary heroism and the pathos of betrayal, deception and regret, are all conveyed through intense and empathic poetics. 

The fascinating, complex and enigmatic world of these women artists is being presented for the first time in Italy, through this ground-breaking panorama offering a wealth of new discoveries and perspectives.  The 5 sections of the exhibition illustrate the different kinds of training they received and the various forms of success they achieved as professional artists. 

 

SECTION 1 – Women artists in Vasari

In the first edition of the Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori et architettori (1550), Vasari dedicated only one biography to a woman artist, the Bolognese sculptor Properzia de’ Rossi, who was not too proud “to set herself with her little hands, so tender and white, to manual labours, braving the roughness of marble and the unkindly chisels”. Properzia had worked at the all-male construction site of the basilica of San Petronio, and literally defended her work tooth and nail, ending up in the courts for having “scratched” one of her detractors. 

More female artists are mentioned in the second edition of the Vite (1558). Moreover, the fact that Sofonisba Anguissola’s father Amilcare corresponded with Michelangelo and sent him two much appreciated drawings by his daughter, led Vasari to visit the Anguissola home in 1566. Sofonisba had been at the court of Philip II in Madrid for some years, but the biographer conversed at length with her sister Europa, who was also a painter – like Lucia, who had died in 1565. Hence, Vasari wrote extensively about the Anguissola sisters, pointing out that they were an exception, because they came from a privileged background and were able to develop their natural talents through study: “…it is necessary to have by nature an inclination for art, and then to add to that study and practice, as has been done by those four noble and gifted sisters, so much enamoured of every rare art, and in particular of the matters of design, insomuch that the house of Signor Amilcare Anguisciuola, most happy father of a fair and honourable family, appeared to me the home of painting, or rather, of all the arts.” 

 

SECTION 2 – Convent artists 

In the Vite, Vasari mentions two artist nuns: the Carmelite Antonia Doni, who was the daughter of the painter Paolo Uccello and died in 1491, and the Dominican Plautilla Nelli, who at the time was prioress of the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence. Plautilla, who followed the severe spiritual regime of Savonarola, taught herself by copying the drawings of Fra’ Bartolomeo, and organized with her fellow nuns a workshop in which they executed devotional pieces that were also put on the market. 

One of her illustrious predecessors was Caterina Vigri from Bologna, the artist to whom the Accademia Clementina was dedicated in 1710, two years before she was proclaimed a saint.

A more thorough training was received by two 17th-century nuns, Orsola Maddalena Caccia and Lucrina Fetti, sister of the painter Domenico and active in the convent of Sant’Orsola in Mantua. 

Orsola Maddalena Caccia was taught by her father Guglielmo, known as Il Moncalvo, who had worked with Federico Zuccari on the Grande Galleria di Carlo Emanuele I in Turin and with the artists under Federico Borromeo’s patronage in Milan. In 1620, at the age of 24, she entered the Ursuline convent at Bianzé; in 1625 her father instituted a “domestic” convent at Moncalvo, near Asti, because he wanted his daughters who had taken their vows to be closer to him, and “to enjoy the works of Sister Orsola Maddalena”.  Abbess from 1627 to c.1652, she continued to produce art at least until 1670, her painting workshop acting as a catalyst on the life of the Moncalvo community and transforming the cloistered retreat into a place devoted to the arts and culture. Her work ranged from altarpieces to chamber pictures and some very fine still lifes. 

 

SECTION 3 – Family stories

While it was almost impossible for women who were not from high-ranking families to study painting techniques and methods, most Italian and foreign female artists had the privilege of training in their father’s workshop. From the north to the south of Italy, many women took up art as a profession, learning the craft from a member of the family and also inheriting their workshop and patrons: from Milan, where Fede Galizia was probably born to the miniaturist Nunzio from Trento, but worked mainly in Lombardy, to Palermo, native city of Rosalia Novelli, daughter of the painter Pietro and an enterprising woman who played an important social role. 

As well as stories of entire careers influenced by fathers, like those of Barbara Longhi from Ravenna, daughter of Luca and singled out by Vasari for her grace, and Maddalena Natali from Cremona, who followed her father Giovanni Battista to Rome, there were also female artists who broke away from the paternal model, achieving greater social standing and critical acclaim than their teachers. This was the case with the celebrated artist Lavinia Fontana in Bologna, who won the fame and honours that her father had let slip, and also Elisabetta Sirani, a painter who died at twenty-seven but in her short, decade-long career surpassed her father, the Renian painter Giovan Andrea, who also taught Ginevra Cantofoli. In Veneto, Tintoretto’s fierce love for his daughter Marietta, who learned her craft in his workshop and died young, was legendary, as was the devotion shown by the painter Chiara Varotari to her brother Alessandro, the famous Padovanino. 

 

SECTION 4 – The academicians

The first woman to be admitted to an association of artists was Diana Scultori from Mantua. After moving to Rome in 1575, in 1580 she became a member of the Compagnia di San Giuseppe di Terrasanta (Congregation of St Joseph of the Holy Land) to which a chapel in the Pantheon had been granted, with right of patronage, by Pope Paul III in 1542. Reserved for painters, sculptors and architects, the Compagnia performed mainly charitable works, and was thus renamed the Accademia dei Virtuosi by Giovanni Baglione. 

The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno founded in Florence in 1563 by Giorgio Vasari, with the approval of Cosimo I de’ Medici, had different aims: to ensure that the excellence of artists was recognized and that their expertise and knowledge was passed on through teaching. Artemisia Gentileschi was accepted by the Florentine Academy in 1616.

In Rome there was the University of Painters, Miniaturists and Embroiderers which in 1577, on the initiative of the painter Girolamo Muziano, became the Accademia delle Arti della Pittura, della Scultura e del Disegno, an institution that was incorporated in the Accademia di San Luca, founded by Federico Zuccari in 1593, which had the same aims as Vasari’s Academy. In 1607 the statute was modified to allow women to become members, but without the right to attend executive sessions. The lists of academicians include numerous female artists: Lavinia Fontana, Anna Maria Vaiani, Maddalena Corvina, Giovanna Garzoni, Plautilla Bricci, Virginia Vezzi, Elisabetta Sirani, Isabella Parasole, Teresa Del Po, Lucia Neri, Ippolita De Biagi, Giustiniana Guidotti and Caterina Ginnasi. 

 

SECTION 5  – Artemisia Gentileschi “the most talented woman painter of them all”

In Notizie del disegno da Cimabue in qua  – a multi-volume work on which publication began in 1681 – the Florentine biographer and painter Filippo Baldinucci describes Artemisia Gentileschi as the foremost woman painter and the most gifted of them all. In the 20th century this woman’s story and her artistic prowess became emblematic. Artemisia’s tormented and transgressive life made her a symbol of rebellion, and, as a painter, she was a manifesto of awareness of her professional identity. Scarred by being raped at the age of 18 by the painter Agostino Tassi, and the torture inflicted on her at the subsequent trial, she nevertheless showed incredible strength of mind. She redeemed her status of dishonoured woman by marrying Pierantonio Stiattesi, then found true love with the Florentine nobleman Francesco Maringhi, with whom she had an almost life-long affair – which was considered scandalous at the time.

Her biblical heroines, like Judith, Delilah and Jael, are the perpetrators of atrocious acts in which men become the victims. They are figures that symbolize rebellion and vengeance, like the young David who vanquished the giant Goliath, representing a reversal of roles in which the strength of the “weak” comes to the fore. Her historical heroines, like Cleopatra and Lucretia, are Junoesque women who possess a monumental and vital physicality at the dramatic moment of suicide, choosing to die rather than be subjugated. The artist’s saints, from Magdalene to Catherine of Alexandria, are women who aspire to salvation, achieved through penitence or wisdom. 

The ambitious and tenacious Artemisia associated with scholars and men of letters. She started out as an illiterate painter and ended up being admitted to the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, and frequenting the most celebrated salons in Venice and Naples. A restless woman who constantly strove for success, her career took her as far as London, but ended in Naples where she established a lively workshop with various male assistants.

Although she always said she was unsatisfied with her life and work situation in Naples, Artemisia lived there from 1630 until she died. All trace of her is lost after August 1654, when the plague raged in the city. Two masterpieces on display at the exhibition were executed during her Neapolitan period: David with the Head of Goliath, which was seen in her studio by Jacob Sandrart in 1631, and the Magdalene from the Sursock Collection, belonging to one of the most aristocratic families in Lebanon. The painting was damaged during the explosion at the port of Beirut on 4 August 2020, and is on display in its present state, prior to restoration. This newly discovered work has never been exhibited before, and is a fundamental addition to the Gentileschi catalogue. 

 

Main Sponsor of the exhibition, Fondazione Bracco has always kept abreast of new developments in the world of art and science, showing a special interest in the feminine universe. The Fondazione has enthusiastically committed to this project, which is part of the programme I Talenti delle donne devised by the Milan City Council, of which Fondazione Bracco is the Main Partner. In addition the Fondazione has created, in collaboration with various Milanese universities, a scientific project for the exhibition to shed new light on an important work on display through the use of diagnostic imaging, in which Bracco is a world leader. The work in question is the Portrait of Carlo Emanuele I Duke of Savoy, a tempera on parchment executed by the 17th-century miniaturist painter Giovanna Garzoni from Ascoli Piceno and held by the Musei Reali in Turin. Science and research thus become important tools not only for ensuring individual well-being, but also for studying works of art. In fact, the aim of the Fondazione, founded on the legacy of values developed over the 90 years of the Gruppo Bracco’s history, is to create and spread expressions of culture, art and science as the means of improving the quality of life and social cohesion.

Special partner Ricola.

Event recommended by Sky Arte.

Catalogue published by Skira.

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From 2 March 2021 Palazzo Reale in Milan is hosting the first major exhibition devoted to ‘The Ladies of Art’, extraordinarily talented women artists active between the 16th and 17th century, who can finally be seen in all their splendour

From 2 March 2021 Palazzo Reale in Milan is hosting the first major exhibition devoted to ‘The Ladies of Art’, extraordinarily talented women artists active between the 16th and 17th century, who can finally be seen in all their splendour.

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