Continuing our visit to the museum, you will see that a whole corridor has been set out like an old portrait gallery, similar to those found in noble homes. Even the materials chosen, such as the damask upholstery and the way the portraits have been hung close together make this similar to the galleries of the past. The portraits displayed here were chosen in such a way as to provide a panorama of the development of the portraiture through the centuries, from the oldest in our collection – a portrait of Giuliano della Rovere, religious patron who lived in the late 16th century – to works from the first half of the 1900s. After admiring the very elegant 17th-century Dutch portrait of Maurice, Prince of Orange wearing the Order of the Knights of the Garter, we move on to 18th-century Monza, with portraits of two illustrious protagonists in the city’s history.
The first is Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini, member of an illustrious feudal family who built the villas of Mirabello and Mirabellino, now inside the Park of Monza. The second is the registrar Carlo Antonio Sirtori, member of a family of notable authors of interesting “Annals”, with their rich content of precious information. In both portraits we can see the typical technique of the period in which, to make it easier to identify the subject, they were painted leaning on a shelf of books, letters or documents from which would be possible to deduce their name or position.
Nineteenth-century portraiture is introduced here by one of the museum’s masterpieces, the portrait of a young woman by Francesco Hayez. We are uncertain of the woman’s identity, but the intimate tone of the portrait, the pose of its subject and her direct gaze lead us to think that she may be Carolina Zucchi, loved by the young Francesco during his period in Milan. Alongside this is a portrait of doctor and poet Giovanni Raiberti, a leading figure in the Risorgimento, depicted in a courtly pose that purposefully evokes the famous portrait of Alessandro Manzoni.
The second half of the 19th century again focuses on artists from Monza, valid portrait painters such as Mosè Bianchi, Mariani, and Spreafico. As a reflection of a changing society, the subjects portrayed are not noble or members of the clergy, but industrialists and journalists; the style is faster and more immediate, capturing the changing expressions of the face with flaking touches of colour and light. The same attention is seen in self-portraits by the artists, captured, as in the case of Mariani, who paints himself in a pose like that of Titian, or hints of restlessness as in the face of Monza artist Eugenio Baioni, painter and sculptor, and great friend of Marche artist, Anselmo Bucci, who not by chance concludes the collection with a canvas from 1931.