Sabauda Gallery, completely refurbished Gualino collection and 18th century painting section

New layout for the second floor of the Sabauda Gallery of the Royal Museums of Turin: the Gualino Collection and the collection of eighteenth-century works have been completely rearranged. The rearrangement aims to enhance the latter and also to strengthen the identity of the Pinacoteca in the context of the museum system, placing itself in close continuity with the visiting routes inaugurated in recent years inside the Manica Nuova of the Royal Palace.

The rearrangement of the Gualino Collection was realized with the support of the Council for the Enhancement of the Artistic and Cultural Heritage of Turin and the museographic project of Studio Loredana Iacopino Architettura. Ordered by historical periods, the itinerary is faithful to Riccardo Gualino’s choices and taste, also in relation to the historical context of his time. Entrepreneur, collector and patron of the arts, Riccardo Gualino (Biella 1879 - Florence 1964) was one of the great protagonists of 20th-century Italian history. Thanks to his cosmopolitan spirit and network of acquaintances, he soon established himself as one of the most influential personalities in the field of arts and industry. Gathered starting in the first decade of the twentieth century with the support of his wife Cesarina Gurgo Salice, his collection is considered among the most significant and important of the twentieth century in Italy, fueled by a considerable availability of resources, obtained in the fields of trade, industrial production and finance, in Italy and abroad. The collection includes ancient and modern sculptures, paintings, goldsmithing and furniture, bronzes and ivories dated from antiquity to the nineteenth century and from the European and Eastern area, and began as an antiquarian collection with a furnishing function and then took on a new and broader orientation, thanks to the association with the art historian Lionello Venturi, who was involved as a consultant in 1918. During the 1920s, the collection opened up to artists active in Turin, particularly Felice Casorati and the Six Painters group.

“This reorganization was conducted under the banner of the widest accessibility of the contents and great stories contained in the heritage of the Galleria Sabauda,” said Enrica Pagella, Director of the Royal Museums. “For Gualino, the life and passions of a fine collector are intertwined with a history of artistic production ranging from ancient Egypt to the 19th century, embracing painting, sculpture and decorative arts. It is an itinerary that deserved to be supported by a new and appropriate layout, both in terms of articulation of space and lighting and explanatory aids. It is an important result that the Musei Reali could not have achieved without the support of the Consulta per la Valorizzazione dei Beni Artistici e Culturali di Torino, to which was added that of Gabriella and Giuseppe Ferrero, who generously wanted to accompany this important intervention.”

“The collaboration between the Consulta and the Musei Reali began in 1998,” added President Giorgio Marsiaj, “and over the years we have enthusiastically accepted requests to intervene in the different realities that make up one of the twenty largest museums in our country, which ranks among the leading European museum institutions.”

The Gualino Collection

With the move of the Sabauda Gallery from the Palace of the Academy of Sciences to the Manica Nuova of the Royal Palace in 2014, the Gualino Collection had found partial accommodation in a single room on the third floor of the Pinacoteca and was presented according to a purely chronological criterion, which did not take into account the complexity of its formation.

"Following the recent wide-ranging studies conducted on the figure of the Piedmontese financier on the occasion of the exhibition I mondi di Riccardo Gualino collezionista e imprenditore, set up in the Sale Chiablese in 2019," explains Annamaria Bava, head of the Royal Museums’ Art and Archaeology Collections, “it was now essential to also restore a proper dimension to the extraordinary collection of a personage who, first and foremost in the world of art and industry, but also in many other fields, marked the history of the city Turin in the early twentieth century. The new layout also makes it possible to enhance the formation and richness of the collection, which has been part of the heritage of the Italian state since 1930.”

Divided into seven rooms on the second floor of the Galleria Sabauda, the exhibition itinerary offers settings with contemporary colors. In the first room, visitors are greeted by a film produced by the Bank of Italy, which still houses part of the collection in Rome. Each section of the itinerary testifies to the aesthetic tastes of the owner: a look to the East; the taste of the Primitives; paintings, golds and ivories; the museum house; the Renaissance and beyond; the taste for the antique; and the portrait gallery.

More than one hundred and twenty works on display, including masterpieces of Tuscan painting, such as Duccio di Buoninsegna ’s Madonna Enthroned and Sandro Botticelli’s Venus, and Venetian paintings such as Paolo Veronese’s Venus and Mars and Leda and the Swan from the school of Titian. In addition, ancient goldsmithing and fine archaeological artifacts, such as the Egyptian sculptural group from the 4th Dynasty and the rare Carthaginian Plate with Nereid from the 6th century A.D., testify to Riccardo Gualino’s antiquarian passion.

The eighteenth-century collections

The eighteenth-century painting section has also been rearranged, with the addition of works hitherto kept in storage. The itinerary follows a chronological organization by cultural and geographical spheres to illustrate the collecting choices of the Savoy Court starting from the early eighteenth century, marked by the arrival of Filippo Juvarra in Turin.

The display is organized along seven rooms that highlight the different figurative trends that characterized 18th-century European art: painting of religious subjects and Venetian purchases for the Savoy residences under the direction of Filippo Juvarra, the vedutism of the Grand Tour, portraits, international classicism, interest in antiquity, theatrical scenography, allegorical and mythological fables for the decoration of the Royal Palace, and paintings by some of the best-known female painters between the 18th and 19th centuries. There are works by great artists such as Francesco Solimena, Sebastiano Ricci, Gaspar van Wittel, Charles-André van Loo, Pierre Subleyras, Giacomo Ceruti, Pompeo Batoni, Anton Raphael Mengs, and Bernardo Bellotto, whose Veduta di Torino (View of Turin) from the side of the royal garden is appreciated.

Photo by Davide Bozzalla

Sabauda Gallery, completely refurbished Gualino collection and 18th century painting section

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.