Painter Rome. Women artists in Rome between the 16th and 19th centuries. The exhibition at the Museum of Rome-Palazzo Braschi – Carlo Franza’s blog

The many artists who from the 16th to the 19th century made Rome their place of study and work with a rich, varied and absolutely artistic production, often relegated to a sort of historiographical “silence”, are at the center of the exhibition “Rome Painter. Female artists at work between the 16th and 18th centuries“, hosted at the Museum of Rome at Palazzo Braschi from 25 October 2024 to 23 March 2025. The exhibition, promoted by Roma Capitale, Department of Culture – Capitoline Superintendence of Cultural Heritage.

The exhibition project offers around 130 works, created by fifty-six different artists, active in the city permanently or for more or less long periods, starting initially from the collections of the Civic Museums of the Capitoline Superintendency (of which around fifty works from the Art Gallery are exhibited Moderna, from the Napoleonic Museum, from the Pinacoteca dei Musei Capitolini and, above all, from the Museum of Rome itself), to then connect to those of many other national and international museums and collections, including Accademia di San Luca (Rome), Accademia di Brera (Milan), Uffizi Galleries (Florence), Pilotta di Parma, Royal Museums of Turin, National Portrait Gallery (London) and the Thorvaldsen Museum (Copenhagen).

We want to reconstruct the professional and biographical events of these artists, often unknown due to the lack of documentation or because their works had been attributed to the works of male masters and family members. Maria Felice Tibaldi Subleyras, Angelika Kaufmann, Laura Piranesi, Marianna Candidi Dionigi, Louise Seidler and Emma Gaggiotti, whose works were mostly preserved in storage, and other artists active in the city, from the well-known Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi and Giovanna Garzoni , to those less known such as Giustiniana Guidotti, Ida Botti or Amalia De Angelis and many others, whose catalog is being reconstructing in these last decades of research.

The itinerary, chronological and thematic, describes the progressive inclusion of these painters in the international market, and the arduous achievement of full access to training and to the most important institutions of the city, such as the Accademia di San Luca and the Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon . In this process of affirmation, Rome confirms itself as a primary place of apprenticeship. The city is not only intended as a place of practice, training and market, but also becomes the personification of the many artists who, by birth or choice, have worked there, contributing to the consolidation of its reputation as a crucial place for the development of creative careers through ‘age modern.

The title of the exhibition refers to seventeenth-eighteenth-century historiography (starting from the Felsina painter of Malvasia dedicated to Bologna in 1678), at a time when the various pictorial schools of Italy were trying to claim their autonomy from the Florentine hegemony. Likewise, the artists, who have always been neglected by studies, reclaim their presence in the exhibition in Rome, the Capital of the Arts between the 16th and 19th centuries.

It is up to the enigmatic artist portrayed by Pietro Paolini in the first decades of the 17th century to welcome the visitor at the entrance to the exhibition itinerary. With a hitherto unknown identity, the young still life painter looks intensely towards the viewer, proudly displaying the tools of her trade. The first room is dedicated to the Bolognese Lavinia Fontana, whose works that are unpublished or never exhibited before alternate, including the first self-portrait on copper. And, to follow, eyes focused on Artemisia Gentileschi, retracing the stages of her brilliant career with three works: from the second Roman phase the painting Cleopatra, exemplary on classical statuary, but dramatic, sensual, mature in the rendering of nudity; of the following decade L’Aurora, a work with unpublished iconography; finally, of the Neapolitan period Judith and the servant with the head of Holofernesa re-proposal with darker tones of a painting by his father Orazio.

The important thing is presence of Giustiniana Guidottiwith the only work known so far, which is exhibited here for the first time. Guidotti leaves her signature, a tool that the artists had at their disposal to make themselves visible to the public. Still remaining in the seventeenth century, a room is entirely dedicated to still life in which Laura Bernasconi and Anna Stanchi excel. Exceptional loan from the Accademia di San Luca, a precious album with meticulous miniatures of plants, fruits, flowers and animals by Giovanna Garzoni from Ascoli. The section dedicated to the 16th and 17th centuries ends with two other rooms, one reserved for another genre widely practiced by female painters, the portrait, among which of particular interest it is the only work known today by Claudia Del Bufalo that depicts her sister Faustina in her wedding dress. This is followed by a focus on graphics, miniatures and a small insight into the famous one architect Plautilla Bricci, with some nineteenth-century elevations of his project representative, the Villa del Vascello.

Five paintings illustrate the artistic journey of Angelika Kauffmann, international painter who settles in Rome, where her home-atelier becomes a meeting place for many intellectuals. Ample space, then, to the engraver Laura Piranesi and other painters who, with their work, consolidate their presence in academies and success in the art market, among including Élisabeth Vigée, Caterina Cherubini and Maria Felice Tibaldi.

The story through the 19th century unfolds with the many faces of artists, self-portraits or depicted by others, but also singers, actresses, salonnières filmed in iconic images that restore the strength and determination of all the women who contributed to the many changes in society. Emma Gaggiotti’s Family Portrait is exhibited for the first time, as well as the Venus from the Uffizi and the Holy Family from the Vatican, both works preserved in storage and recently restored. While the Uffizi Self-Portrait only recently found a place in the museum’s self-portrait rooms (2023). The tour ends with the last three rooms, divided into themes: religious and historical subjects, portrait, and finally landscape and still life.

In 19th century Rome, female artists enjoyed greater freedom than in the past: compared to previous centuries, women who dedicated themselves to art grew in number and in many cases they were figures still to be discovered. Like, for example, Erminia De Sanctis and Virginia Barlocci, various of whose works are preserved in the Capitoline collectionsbut which also re-emerge from the antiques market and constitute an absolute exhibition novelty.

Finally, the exhibition ends with a map, both displayed and printed in a handy brochure, to continue the visit to the city, with indications of all the works of female artists exhibited in public and accessible places. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a series of meetings open to the public where other disciplinary areas in which the presence of women has been significant and has left its mark over time will be touched on. International guests will be present, renowned scholars in the field of gender studies and beyond. With the exhibition “Rome Painter. Female artists at work between the 16th and 18th centuries” the Capitoline Superintendency’s commitment to making temporary exhibitions accessible is renewed.

Carlo Franza