Amedeo Modigliani in Worldwide Museums: 1. The Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum

 

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After completing the introduction of Amedeo Modigliani's works, which was lasted over two years for 100 works, I am going to start a new program visiting worldwide art galleries and museums possessing Modigliani's works from this week.

The first place I would like to introduce is The Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum in Livorno, Italy.

The Giovanni Fattori Civic Museum is a museum in Livorno, Italy. Located in Villa Mimbelli, the museum was inaugurated in 1994 in the presence of then-President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

The museum has many paintings by Giovanni Fattori and other Macchiaioli.

Self-portrait, Giovanni Fattori (1854)

The museum's origin dates back to 1877, when the municipal administration established a picture gallery that collected paintings by artists such as Giovanni Fattori, Enrico Pollastrini and Cesare Bartolena.

Subsequently, the museum has acquired works by Raffaello Gambogi, Silvestro Lega, Guglielmo Micheli, Adolfo Tommasi, Enrico Banti and others.

Macchiaioli at the Caffè Michelangiolo (c. 1856)

The museum's collection was enriched by the addition of archaeological finds and a numismatic collection donated by Enrico Chiellini between the late of the nineteenth century and the early of the twentieth century. The museum also purchased 250 drawings and 150 etchings of the artist in 1908, when Fattori died, and the museum was named after Giovanni Fattori at the beginning of 1930s.

In addition to the works of the above-mentioned artists, the museum houses works such as various plaster sketches by Temistocle Guerrazzi and Bertel Thorvaldsen; a bas-relief by François Duquesnoy; Flemish school paintings of the 17th century; several paintings of the Madonna and child dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries; three bronze masks by Pietro Tacca; a collection of official garments of the gonfalonieri and priors of the city; memories of General Enrico Cialdini, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Guerrazzi; portraits of prominent Livorno residents and archaeological finds from Livorno area.

During the War, the museum's collection was moved out of the city, and when the war was over, a part of the collection was placed on the second floor of the Villa Fabbricotti, while the rest was placed in the various municipal offices and warehouses. At the same time, the museum's collection was enriched by acquisition of works by artists such as Plinio Nomellini, Guglielmo Micheli, Serafino De Tivoli, Oscar Ghiglia, Ulvi Liegi and Amedeo Modigliani.

In 1994, the museum, made up of only a part of the collection, was moved to Villa Mimbelli.

Modigliani's work, now in the Fattori Museum's collection, is "The Tuscan Road", painted in 1899.

The Tuscan Road, Amedeo Modigliani (1899)

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102. Classical Music: 17. Pyotr Tchaikovsky, ACJ Music Academy

 

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This week's lecture is “Pyotr Tchaikovsky”, the 17th topic of “Classical Music”, which is a summary of the contents of “102. Classical Music: 17. Pyotr Tchaikovsky” introduced on September 9th, 2017.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, born on May 7, 1840 and died on November 6, 1893, was a Russian composer of the Romantic era.

Tchaikovsky's birthplace, Votkinsk

He was gifted musically from an early age, but at the time Russia had a poor musical education environment, with few opportunities for a musical career and no public musical education system. However, when the Saint Petersburg Conservatory was established and the opportunity for such an education arose, he entered there. 

The Saint Petersburg Conservatory (1913)

The Western-oriented music education he received at the conservatory set him apart from the Russian nationalist music embodied by the Russian composers of The Five.

The Five (composers), Mily Balakirev (top),
César Cui (upper left), Modest Mussorgsky
(upper right), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
(lower left), Alexander Borodin (lower right)

He achieved great public success in his musical career, but he was suffered from depression due to factors including the early death of his mother after his early separation from his mother for boarding school, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, and the collapse of the relationship with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck, who was his patron even though they never met. Also, his homosexuality is considered another major factor, although some musicologists now downplay its importance.

Nadezhda von Meck

In October 1893, Tchaikovsky died at the age of 53, nine days after conducting the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique in Saint Petersburg. He was buried in the cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near the tombs of his fellow composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, and Modest Mussorgsky, and after his death Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev were also buried nearby.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky grave in Tikhvin
Cemetery

Although Tchaikovsky's sudden death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, the debate over the cause of his death continues to this day, including a claim that his death was a suicide.

Statue of Tchaikovsky, Simferopol, Crimea

Tchaikovsky’s compositions such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty are now regarded as the best of classical ballet music.

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Interesting Art Stories: 64. The Portrait of Irène Cahen d’Anvers, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, ACJ Art Academy

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Currently, I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art Stories”.

The 64th story is “The Portrait of Irène Cahen d’Anvers” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Self-portrait, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1875)

The “Portrait of Irène Cahen d’Anvers” is an oil painting by the French Impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Commissioned by the wealthy French Jewish banker, Louis Cahen d'Anvers in 1880, the painting depicts his 8-year-old daughter, Irène Cahen d'Anvers.

Louis Cahen d'Anvers, Léon Bonnat (1901)

Renoir, who frequently painted portraits for the families of the Jewish community living in Paris in the 1870s and 80s, met Louis Cahen d'Anvers through the art collector Charles Ephrussi, the owner of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.

Charles Ephrussi, Jean Patricot (1905)

Louis commissioned Renoir for two portraits of his three daughters, one of which depicts the eldest daughter Irène, and the other depicts her sisters Alice and Elizabeth, which is now known as “Pink and Blue.”

Pink and Blue, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1881)

Today, the painting is considered as one of Renoir's masterpieces, but at the time, Louis was so dissatisfied with the painting that he hung the painting in the servants' quarters and even delayed paying Renoir for the painting.

In 1883, the painting was exhibited for the first time in Renoir's first solo exhibition at Paul Durand-Ruel's Boulevard des Capucines gallery, and was purchased in 1910 by the Camondo family, which Irène had married into.

Portrait of Paul Durand-Ruel, Pierre-Auguste
Renoir (c. 1910)

The model for the painting, Irène Cahen d’Anvers, was 8 years old when it was painted.

The eldest daughter of Count Louis Cahen d'Anvers, she married Count Moïse de Camondo in 1891. However, the two fell apart in 1897 due to her affair with Count Charles Sampieri, Camondo's stable master, to which Irène would later marry and divorce. Irène and Camondo had two children, Nissim and Béatrice. Nissim became a fighter pilot of the French Air Force during World War I and was killed in action over Lorraine in 1917. 

Moïse de Camondo

Nissim and his sister Béatrice de Camondo
(1916)

In 1935, Camondo bequeathed his Parisian mansion, including his major collection of art, to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris to be used to establish the Musée Nissim de Camondo in honor of him and Irène's son. Because of their Jewish descent, Béatrice, along with her ex-husband and two children, was executed in Auschwitz by the Nazis during World War II. In 1963, Irène died in Paris at the age of 91.

Grand Salon, Musée Nissim de Camondo

After the fall of France, the painting was looted from Château de Chambord by the Nazis and became the private collection of Hermann Göring, along with many other important pieces of European art, and then the collection of German art dealer Gustav Rochlitz. Re-appearing in 1946, the painting was exhibited in Paris as one of the "French masterpieces found in Germany."

Hermann Göring

Later, the painting was acquired by Emil Georg Bührle, a Swiss industrialist, German-born art collector, and CEO of the OC Oerlikon, a wartime supplier of the German military, along with dozens of other artworks stolen by the Nazis. Currently, the painting is owned by the E.G. Bührle Collection in Zürich.

Emil Georg Bührle

In 2014, the painting appeared in the movie "The Monuments Men" as one of the works of art saved by the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program. In 2018, as part of a series of Impressionist artworks on loan from the E.G. Bührle Collection, it was exhibited in the National Art Center in Tokyo and gained popularity in Japan.

The National Art Center, Tokyo

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