Bastianini's Self-Portrait goes to Casole d'Elsa for new Uffizi Diffusi stage

The Uffizi Diffusi ’s new exhibition stop in Casole d’Elsa (Siena) features an important artist’s self-portrait by Casole painter Augusto Bastianini (Monteguidi, 1875 - Florence 1938), which will remain on display at the Museo Civico di Casole from May 13 to Nov. 1, 2023.

It is an oil on canvas dated 1900 and donated to the Uffizi Gallery by the artist’s widow in 1941. Bastianini completed it when he was only twenty-five years old and it can be considered in its own right his masterpiece, still fresh from his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence (where he was later also a professor) and from the suggestions drawn from the Festa dell’Arte e dei Fiori (1896-1897), a major event through which young Florentine artists of the time came to know Italian and European art. The work will be placed in dialogue with a nucleus of other works by Bastianini himself and painters of his time, both owned by the civic museum and from other collections. Twenty-two paintings will be on display in this second chapter of the Uffizi Diffusi in Casole: last year the Uffizi had brought here The Allegory of Painting and Architecture by Francesco Rustici known as Rustichino.

Bastanini’s self-portrait is an example of the best portraiture of the period because of the vividness of the painting, conceived and executed inside his studio in Florence’s Via Ghibellina, and the emotional intensity that characterizes the artist’s face.

The work brings a genre of painting absent from the collection of the Casole museum, in which all the other fields of investigation dear to Bastianini are documented instead: the study of the nude, history painting, painting of the fields, depiction of human activities, foreshortenings and views. A section of the exhibition is devoted to three particularly significant works tracked down in recent years among private collections and the antiques market. These include, in particular, the painting Melancholy, purchased in 1913 by King Victor Emmanuel III and now owned by the Municipality of Casole d’Elsa. Closing the exhibition are two other portraits, those of his painter friends Niccolò Cannicci and Antonio Salvetti, to whom Bastianini himself, in his capacity as art critic, dedicated two important contributions published in the Miscellanea Storica della Valdelsa in 1927 and 1932.

“For the second consecutive year, the Uffizi is contributing to an exhibition in the wonderful town of Casole d’Elsa,” said Uffizi Galleries director Eike Schmidt. “In this circumstance the central figure is Augusto Bastianini, a native of Monteguidi in Val d’Elsa and later naturalized Florentine and a professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. The Uffizi in Casole will send Augusto Bastianini’s self-portrait, belonging to the famous collection of Self-Portraits that was started by Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici. All this while a vast campaign of study of the collection itself is underway, which will soon be widely visible in no less than thirteen rooms on the second floor of the Uffizi.”

Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Casole d’Elsa, Vittoria Panichi, added, “The municipal administration has worked in recent years with the intention of protecting, enhancing and improving the enjoyment of the museum of Casole, as one of the most beautiful and richest institutes and places of culture in the Valdelsa. To achieve these goals, it has been necessary to broaden its horizons and seek opportunities outside the municipal boundaries, focusing on excellence and internationality. For these reasons, the administration strongly wanted ’Uffizi Diffusi in Casole d’Elsa’ to be realized. The first two exhibitions of this three-year project, dedicated respectively to Francesco Rustici and Augusto Bastianini, have made it possible to delve into the life and work of these two extraordinary painters and to generate new forms of art such as short films dedicated to the two artists and the bust of Bastianini made by sculptor Paolo Morandi. With pride it is possible to say that the collaboration with the Uffizi Gallery, the most prestigious museum in Italy and among the first in the world, has represented and represents a great opportunity not only to enhance the cultural heritage of Casolese, but also important pieces of local history thus highlighting an entire territory.”

The exhibition can be visited daily from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m. Closed on Wednesdays.

Image: Augusto Bastianini, Self-Portrait, detail (1900; oil on canvas, 110.5 x 70.5 cm)

Bastianini's Self-Portrait goes to Casole d'Elsa for new Uffizi Diffusi stage

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