Dreaming of the 18th century: in Genoa, Palazzo Bianco, an exhibition on 18th century fashion

From December 5, 2019 to April 26, 2020, the exhibition Dreaming of the Eighteenth Century opens to the public in Genoa. Eighteenth-Century Dresses and Decorative Arts in Genoa’s Nineteenth-Century Collections.

The exhibition, curated by Loredana Pessa with the artistic direction of Elisabetta Agostino, set up in the exhibition rooms on the second floor of Palazzo Bianco, takes up and develops the theme of collecting eighteenth-century artifacts, presenting Giuseppe Zerega ’s collection in the broader context of the history of collecting in Genoa in the nineteenth century and highlighting the particular interest in eighteenth-century decorative arts that characterizes the local environment, almost in contrast to the tastes of the time. For this reason, the tour, after an initial section devoted to the nineteenth-century art market in Genoa and the circulation of eighteenth-century artifacts, considers two important collections that testify to the passion for the refined production of the Age of Enlightenment: that of the Luxoro family, which is extensive and heterogeneous, and that of the British Consul Montague Yeats Brown, dedicated instead exclusively to the world of ceramics.

After the presentation of a selection of the precious furnishings amassed by the Luxoro family, including silverware, furniture, clocks, and prespiecial statuettes, followed by the room dedicated to the porcelain that belonged to Yeats Brown, the exhibition culminates with an evocative display of some of the most interesting dresses from the Zerega collection, true masterpieces of weaving and embroidery.

The fascination exerted by 18th-century civilization and the attraction to the suntuary arts are the thin thread that binds these three collections, which are also united by their final destination for public enjoyment, thanks to private patronage, which fortunately prevented the dispersion of such an important heritage.

In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition and in close connection with it, a new permanent exhibition space is being opened to the public, dedicated to a collection of precious antique clothes, donated to the municipality in 1917 by the Genoese Giuseppe Zerega. It is a conspicuous heritage consisting of a hundred or so pieces, among which stands out a series of eighteenth-century men’s garments, characterized by embroidery of the highest quality and the use of silk fabrics of refined workmanship, a unique testimony to the tastes and fashions in vogue among the eighteenth-century European aristocracy.

The realization of this additional important part of the itinerary of the Strada Nuova Museums was made possible thanks to the support of Villa Montallegro S.p.A. - a nursing home and outpatient multi-specialty center - as part of a vast program of great attention reserved for culture, classical and contemporary figurative arts, traditional or innovative. The common thread of this program of support for the territory in which the health care reality operates, since its foundation 70 years ago, is the city of Genoa, for which Montallegro is committed to promoting “well-being through culture and healthy lifestyle.”

For all information you can visit museidigenova.it, call +39 0105572193 or send an e-mail to museidistradanuova@comune.genova.it.

Source: release

Dreaming of the 18th century: in Genoa, Palazzo Bianco, an exhibition on 18th century fashion

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