Cesare Tallone's women on display at Villa Bassi Rathgeb

From September 14, 2024 to January 12, 2025, Villa Bassi Rathgeb in Abano Terme hosts the exhibition Woman, Muse, Artist. Portraits by Cesare Tallone between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, curated by Raffaele Campion, Silvia Capponi, Elena Lissoni and Barbara Maria Savy. Protagonist of the exhibition is Cesare Tallone (Savona, 1853 - Milan, 1919), director at theCarrara Academy in Bergamo and professor of painting at the BreraAcademy, artist, portraitist of Queen Margherita and founder of one of the first schools of women’s painting. The exhibition organized and promoted by the City of Abano Terme stems from a study of the museum’s permanent collection and the nucleus of works by Cesare Tallone.

Among the artist’s paintings in the permanent collection of Villa Bassi Rathgeb, in addition to some of the Tallone family portraits, is the Portrait of his sister Linda Maria, painted in 1887 and coming to Abano Terme with the Bassi Rathgeb Collection in 1980. The curatorial team’s investigation of the artist’s photographs and family portraits also made it possible to initiate a reflection on the representation of women in Italian society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Within the exhibition, an entire section is devoted to the women of the Tallone family, such as Eleonora Tango, the painter’s wife and poetess; her sister Virginia Tango Piatti, sculptor, pianist, translator and prolific journalist; and Sibilla Aleramo, writer and journalist.

Connecting with artists and intellectuals, such as poet Ada Negri, critic Margherita Sarfatti, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Tallone founded a private art school for women only in Bergamo in 1897; a number of works by these female pupils are featured in the exhibition, such as two still lifes with flowers made in 1888 by Clara Müller and the Portrait of her sister Valeria (c. 1906) by Emma Nessi, her pupil when she taught painting at the Brera Academy. A number of female portraits come to life in this context, such as Double Female Portrait of 1887 to the Portrait of Mrs. Lina Cavalieri of about 1905, an icon of style that also stands out in the Campari poster, to the “scandalous” Female Nude of 1913. Also on display is Lino Selvatico ’s 1911 Portrait of Emma Gramatica from the Ricci Oddi Gallery in Piacenza. The exhibition is also enriched by fashion and applied arts objects from the Civic Museums of Padua that provide a complete picture of women’s society and customs. The exhibition continues with works on canvas and paper executed by the Agazzi brothers and concludes with Giovanni Boldini’s Portrait of a Lady with Flowers.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Dario Cimorelli Editore, is produced and promoted by Comune di Abano Terme - Museo Villa Bassi Rathgeb in collaboration with CoopCulture and is organized under the patronage of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua.

Cesare Tallone's women on display at Villa Bassi Rathgeb

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