An exhibition in Genoa on Cornelis de Wael, the first Flemish master to settle in the city with his own workshop

From March 19, 2025 to June 22, 2025 Palazzo Bianco - Musei di Strada Nuova in Genoa is hosting the exhibition Naturalness and Truth in the Seventeenth Century Illustrated by Cornelis de Wael (1592-1667) dedicated to Cornelis de Wael, a painter from Antwerp who, in the seventeenth century, was the first Flemish master to settle in Genoa with his own workshop. His arrival marked the beginning of a new artistic season for the city, as he introduced new subjects and a novel approach to reality. His atelier also became a point of reference for numerous artists, including Jan Roos, Giacomo Liegi and Van Dyck, who worked for Genoese patrons in those years.

Curated by Raffaella Besta, Martina Panizzutt and Margherita Priarone, the exhibition stems from the arrival at Palazzo Bianco of a new work by Cornelis de Wael: Lodging the Pilgrims. This painting, recently resurfaced from the antiques market and acquired by the Peloso family, was generously loaned to the Strada Nuova Museums. The work joins two other canvases already in the civic collections, Visiting Prisoners and Visiting the Sick, both part of a cycle dedicated to The Seven Works of Mercy, commissioned by Pier Francesco Grimaldi around 1640.

The two series

The exhibition focuses on Cornelis de Wael’s two most famous pictorial series, in terms of pictorial quality and richness of iconographic invention

The series of the Seven Works of Mercy, a theme repeatedly replicated by the painter, characterized by a moralistic imprint but also by a vivid popular realism, capable of restoring an authentic cross-section of the society of the time, through “naturalness and truth,” as seventeenth-century historiographer Raffaele Soprani stated. In addition to the three canvases preserved at Palazzo Bianco, two rare works, Giving Drink to the Thirsty and Dressing the Unclothed, from a private collection, and a further version of the series, in which all seven charity scenes are depicted within a crowded square, will be on view.
These paintings have an almost documentary value: some are set in recognizable places in seventeenth-century Genoa, such as the Pammatone hospital and the Palazzetto Criminale, and they restore almost as if they were photographs of the time’s customs, traditions and social dynamics.

The other large series on display is devoted to the Stories of the Prodigal Son, a famous Gospel episode and a popular theme among Flemish painters because of its exemplary and narrative value. There will be four large canvases, rich in detail and color, recounting the highlights of the expisode, as well as a painted sketch from a private collection.

The exhibition event has been organized in collaboration with Banco BPM, which preserves the only known complete series on the theme of the Seven Works of Mercy in its Genoese headquarters and which exceptionally opens its spaces to allow this important nucleus to be visited.

For info: https://www.museidigenova.it/it/musei-di-strada-nuova#eventi

Image: Cornelis De Wael, Stories of the Prodigal Son: Dissipation (c. 1630-1639; oil on canvas, 57 x 86 cm)

An exhibition in Genoa on Cornelis de Wael, the first Flemish master to settle in the city with his own workshop

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