Giuseppe Mentessi (Ferrara, 1857 - Milano, 1931)

The lovers

Luigi Frugone

Giovanni Segantini (Arco, 1858 - monte Schafberg, 1899)

GAM 1562

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 180; Larghezza: 130

Charcoal on canvas, 180 x 130 cm

The canvas presents a charcoal sketch of two "Lovers" made by Giovanni Segantini and formally related to two similar young people in the well-known 1896 painting "Love at the Source of Life" (Milan, Galleria d'Arte Moderna).
"The playful and carefree love of the female, and the thoughtful love of the male, bound together by the natural impulse of youth and spring", as Segantini wrote in 1896. Apparently far removed from the painter's expressive methods and exuberant colours precisely because they were unfinished, the two figures were perhaps made for the Symbolist painting ‘The Earthly Paradise’, which was interrupted by the artist's sudden death.
The museum also houses a beautiful charcoal drawing by Segantini, the "Sleeping Shepherd" from around 1893, from the collection of the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini, who bought it during a sale of works belonging to the painter Vittore Grubicy De Dragon who, with his brother Alberto, had been the reference market for the Italian Divisionists.

Sleeping shepherd

Giovanni Segantini (Arco, 1858 - monte Schafberg, 1899)

GPB 695

Unità di misura: UNR (= Unita' Non Rilevata)

Ettore Tito (Castellammare di Stabia, 1859 - Venezia, 1941)

dipinto

Domenico Trentacoste (Palermo, 1859 - Firenze, 1933)

scultura

Page. Greyhound games

Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara, 1842 - Parigi, 1931)

GPB 610

1954, olio su tela, cm. 34,7x53,8

This small costume scene is an interesting example of Boldini's early pictorial production, traceable to the late 1860s. The furnishings give the setting an evocative tone, well aligned with the revival taste of the second half of the 19th century. The warmth and familial intimacy of the scene support the thesis that it was Alaide Banti, the daughter of the Macchiaioli painter Cristiano, with whom the young artist had stayed during his Florentine period, who dressed the costume. The deep bond that united Boldini to Alaide is testified not only by the dense correspondence but also by the numerous paintings and drawings depicting her: despite a marriage proposal rejected in 1903 due to Cristiano Banti's opposition, the relationship between the two would never be interrupted. The painting would enter the Luigi Frugone Collections in 1928 - again thanks to Stefani - while Alaide would disappear the following year: on that occasion Boldini called her his “fiancée of already 60 years.” The painting shows a young girl in Renaissance pageboy clothes as she is intent on playing with a greyhound, lying on a large sofa. On the background is a tapestry while the floor is covered with a rug.

La pittrice

Luigi Frugone 1928 Milano

Mosè Bianchi (Monza, 1840-1904)

GAM 1523

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 75; Larghezza: 62

olio su tela , cm 62

Miss Bell

Luigi Frugone 1953 Genova

Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara, 1842 - Parigi, 1931)

GAM 1524

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 205; Larghezza: 101

Oil on canvas, 205 x 101 cm

XVIII Biennale di Venezia - Venezia - 1932

The work was bought by Luigi Frugone in 1926 from the dealer Ferruccio Stefani. In a letter, the collector does not hide his enthusiasm for the possession of the painting, for which he uses the adjective ‘unsurpassable’. The painting was actually destined for the Marquise Matilde Giustiniani Pallavicini Durazzo of Genoa, who wanted to start a collection of modern works of art. But Stefani did not give up proposing it to Luigi, due to the friendly and privileged relationship he had established with the industrialist, and sold it to him for 130,000 lire. In 1932, at the 18th Venice Biennale, on the occasion of the retrospective dedicated to Giovanni Boldini, "Miss Bell" was exhibited with the explicit indication of Luigi Frugone's ownership.

La contessa Beatrice de Bylandt

Luigi Frugone 1926 Genova

Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara, 1842 - Parigi, 1931)

GAM 1525

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 52.5; Larghezza: 55.5

olio su tela, cm 55

Countess Beatrice de Bylandt

Poor but superb

Luigi Frugone 1928 Genova

Tranquillo Cremona (Pavia, 1837 - Milano, 1878)

GAM1528

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 87.7; Larghezza: 67.2

Oil on canvas, 19 x 15 cm

Tranquillo Cremona was, together with Luigi Conconi and the Russian sculptor Paolo Troubetzkoy, both present in the Frugone collections, an exponent par excellence of the Lombard Scapigliatura and of that anti-academic reaction that led Italian bohemian artists to prefer subjects connected to real, everyday life over great historical representations. Portraits, female figures and genre scenes became the favourite themes of the Scapigliati artists, who, in the field of painting, reached the dissolution of form for a free relationship between light and colour. In the case of this canvas, which appeared in a monograph of the artist with the title "Piccolo ciociaro" (Little Ciociaro), the socially inspired dissolution of the subject's forms is evident.