On display at the Pinacoteca Züst are the Riva picture galleries. Masterpieces in Lugano between the 18th and 19th centuries.

From November 29, 2020 to February 28, 2021, the Pinacoteca Cantonale Giovanni Züst in Rancate (Mendrisio) will host the exhibition Dentro i palazzi. A look at private collecting in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Lugano: the Riva picture galleries, curated by Edoardo Agustoni and Lucia Pedrini Stanga.

On display for the occasion will be more than seventy paintings from the rooms of the palaces that belonged to thearistocratic Riva family in the Lugano of the bailiffs, the confederate governors who, from the early sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century, were in charge of judicial, financial, fiscal and military administration.

Among the most significant paintings featured are those by Giuseppe Antonio Petrini, for whom the Riva family was one of the main patrons. Also on display is a selection of furnishings, silverware, miniatures, books and documents. Works and objects usually not visible to the public.

Through these, the taste and dynamics of the circulation and diffusion of works of art in this border territory (politically it depended on the Swiss cantons, while religiously and culturally it looked toward Italy) will be investigated. In the mid-nineteenth century part of the Riva family settled in Italy, following the marriage union with the Piedmontese Francischelli family, who were related to them by the Bisi, a family of artists from Milan. Hence the numerous works by Luigi, Giuseppe, Ernesta, Fulvia and Antonietta Bisi.

The layout will allow visitors to enter the palaces (the atmosphere of the studio of some of the people mentioned will be recreated) and to discover the picture galleries, with portraits, landscapes, religious, historical and genre scenes, belonging to the three branches of the family (counts, marquises and nobles), once kept in the Luganese mansions and country residences, with the presentation of the city between the 18th and 19th centuries. Also on display are a series of portraits of the landfogti of the cantons beyond the Alps who ruled the prefecture of Lugano and a selection of pieces from collections of other lineages and with whom the Rivas had intense relationships or kinship ties.

Among the artists are Marco and Giuseppe Antonio Petrini, Carlo Francesco and Pietro Rusca, Giovanni Battista Innocenzo Colomba, Carlo Innocenzo Carloni, Giuseppe Antonio Orelli, Giovanni Battista Ronchelli, Giovanni Battista Bagutti, Francesco Capobianco, Gian Francesco Cipper known as “Il Todeschini,” Antonio Maria Marini, Giovanni Migliara, Giuseppe Reina, Francesco Hayez, Pietro Bagatti Valsecchi and the Bisi.

The exhibition is realized with the contribution of Fondazione Lucchini Lugano.

For info: www.ti.ch/zuest

Hours: Tuesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to noon and 2 to 6 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday and holidays from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 6 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Image: Giovanni Battista Innocenzo Colomba, Giacomo Filippo Riva.

On display at the Pinacoteca Züst are the Riva picture galleries. Masterpieces in Lugano between the 18th and 19th centuries.

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