Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica acquires a masterpiece by Francesco Podesti

Ancona ’s Pinacoteca Civica “Francesco Podesti” acquires a masterpiece by the painter who gives the museum its name, Francesco Podesti (Ancona, 1800 - Rome, 1895), one of the most important Italian artists of the 19th century. The work is the Portrait of the Marquises Busca and is considered one of Podesti’s most successful works: in fact, it joins a significant corpus present in his hometown, along with other paintings including the very famous Oath of the Ancona inhabitants.

The painting emerged during 2020, and the possibility of acquiring it is the result of a dialogue between the Administration and a broad city cultural community: many, in fact, emphasized the opportunity to come into possession of the work, starting with the former director of the Pinacoteca, Michele Polverari, up to architect Massimo Di Matteo, designer of the museum’s layout for the 2016 reopening and a great expert on Ancona’s history and culture. With them, associations in the area, such as Centocittà, Lions, Rotary and many others, have shown desire and intention to collaborate.

The painting is currently in Verona, the current home of the Mellini collection, to which the work belongs: the inspection is necessary to complete the necessary acts, for which the City Council has given direction to the offices. The acquisition is part of the broader “second phase” of development of the Civic Museums, as Maria Vittoria Carloni, museum curator of the culture department, explains: “We are working on the overall improvement of the Pinacoteca understood as a museum-service. The revision of the visiting route and the layout will enjoy a new monographic focus on the founding artist of the Pinacoteca, identified within the new exhibition rooms overlooking the renovated entrance from Via Pizzecolli. The prospect of returning to access from the monumental cloister has led us to a general rethinking on the use of spaces, both on the exhibition spaces and on the environments where other services and projects are developed (archives, temporary exhibitions, educational activities), a rethinking that we are carrying out under the prestigious guidance of Professor Zuffi. The Pinacoteca is a forge where work has never failed, from the reorganization of the many works in storage to online enhancement projects, carried out also thanks to the expertise of the staff of the managing entity.”

“Painted in 1825, the double portrait of the Marquises Busca is undoubtedly Podesti’s first masterpiece,” comments art historian Stefano Zuffi. “For the 25-year-old artist (whose dynamic self-portrait peeps out in the painting’s background) it was an opportunity to establish himself as one of the most important painters on the Italian scene in the early 19th century, shortly after the death of the great Antonio Canova and in parallel with the consolidation of Francesco Hayez’s fame. An opportunity brilliantly exploited, thanks in part to the obvious empathy Podesti felt for the two characters: roughly his age, the young Marquises Busca were the representatives of a society heir to the Milanese Enlightenment, with a strong international outlook, great intellectual curiosities (the elder of the two brothers was to become a renowned Egyptologist), and ready to lead that national Risorgimento to which Podesti himself made a strong contribution with major works, up to the Oath of the Anconitani. The possibility of securing for the city of Ancona the double portrait of the Marquises Busca is an extraordinary opportunity for the city’s artistic heritage, and it fits perfectly into the project of redefining the Pinacoteca Civica, named after Francesco Podesti: in the new layout that is being prepared, the painting will have a visibility and a role of absolute importance.”

“It was not easy,” explains Culture Councillor Paolo Marasca, “for many reasons. The Mellini collection is extraordinary, and it interests many great Museums. In particular, for this painting, the interest of a major State Museum left us with bated breath until the very end, but we came through. Among the things that helped, no doubt the work of Professor Zuffi, and the always valuable advice of Carlo Giantomassi, as well as the Museum team. Among those that endangered us, it must be said, was the publicity that was sometimes given by some, certainly well-intentioned, but who talked so much about the occasion as to awaken the agonism of those who wanted the painting as much as we did. For a time we had it bad, because some scattered statements really put the operation in jeopardy. The work is beautiful, and with the Oath is one of Podesti’s two absolute masterpieces. Now Ancona will have both, and will thus have a museum within a museum dedicated to one of the greatest artists of the Italian 19th century. This is an important signal in a difficult period, from which we need to start again by recognizing what are, really, the important things. This one is.”

In the photo: Francesco Podesti, Portrait of the Marquises Busca

Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica acquires a masterpiece by Francesco Podesti

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