An artist’s archive does not merely preserve letters, notes, newspaper clippings, receipts, envelopes, and scattered documents. When systematically examined, it can breathe new life into an entire historical figure, freeing it from the somewhat comfortable stability of established definitions. This is precisely what happens with the Angelo Morbelli Collection, the focus of a study day organized by the Pinacoteca Divisionismo in Tortona—an opportunity to present the results of the cataloging, reorganization, and inventory work carried out on the documentary collection that entered the Pinacoteca’s holdings in 2022.
The documents reveal a Morbelli who is more complex than the image—albeit a fundamental one—of the Divisionist master. He was not merely the painter of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, of old age, of labor, of divided light, and of social issues, but an artist who closely tracked the circulation of his own works, dealt with gallery owners and framers, writes to directors of museums and institutions, records rejections and accolades, navigates the art market, reproduces requested subjects, discusses technical issues, and preserves private records of his own reactions. Even the small skulls sketched on a letter regarding a rejected submission become, in this context, more than just a curious mark: they are a sign of a deeply engaged relationship with his professional life.
The study day in Tortona had the merit of presenting the collection not as a documentary appendix to the works, but as a tool capable of reopening questions about Morbelli, his network of relationships, his position within the art world between the 19th and 20th centuries, and the way in which the artist attempted to manage his own critical and economic fortunes.
The Angelo Morbelli Collection, donated by a branch of the artist’s family, includes the artist’s private papers, supplemented by a small group of loose documents from various sources but pertaining to the painter. The archival project involved approximately 740 documents, organized into 96 archival units, totaling about 1,200 sheets and one linear meter of documentation. The collection is organized into three main series: writings, correspondence, press clippings, and other documents. The writings include four handwritten notebooks titled *Via Crucis del Divisionismo*, as well as loose notes by the artist on his own works, technique, and art. The largest section consists of correspondence, organized by sender and subject: approximately eighty archival units that allow us to trace Morbelli’s career through exhibitions, professional relationships, negotiations, and interactions with other artists, gallery owners, critics, museum directors, and collectors.
The day began with presentations by Alessia Francone and Giovanna Ginex, who outlined the archival history and the methodology used in the reorganization process. The project was not limited to the physical organization of the papers but also involved an analytical cataloging process at the individual-document level: a particularly meticulous approach that made it possible to record the physical characteristics, medium, content, any previous accession numbers, and the names of individuals, institutions, places, and titles of works mentioned.
The history also encompasses its long period of family custody. Before arriving in Tortona, the papers had been passed on to his son Celso and then to his heirs, who at various times made changes to the organization of the material; in fact, during the reorganization, recent annotations and handwritten notes by Enrico Morbelli emerged, as well as older indications, perhaps attributable to Celso and perhaps linked to the 1953 exhibition in Alessandria.
Particularly significant were the traces of the original organization left by Angelo Morbelli himself. Much of the correspondence was not arranged in chronological order but grouped by activity, subject, or sender. The original envelopes—or reused envelopes—functioned as small files: they contained documents related to exhibitions, correspondents, negotiations, or groups of works, thereby becoming part of the documentation themselves.
Morbelli made direct annotations on these envelopes. He noted the sender’s last name, the subject of the correspondence, the titles of the paintings, the works sold, the awards received, and the works’ movements. Thus, the container itself became part of the documentation, as it preserved information useful for reconstructing the circulation of the works and the way in which the artist kept track of his own activities.
Among the markings noted during the event was also a small skull drawn by Morbelli on a letter regarding his rejection from a Venetian exhibition. This detail is significant because it shows how, alongside practical notes, more personal markings—linked to the outcomes of exhibition-related events—could also appear. The papers thus reveal not only facts, names, and dates, but also the way in which the artist organized and documented the memory of his professional career.
The day then shifted its focus from the archival structure to the network of correspondence. Art historian Nicol Maria Mocchi, in her presentation on the collection’s correspondents, offered an overview of the correspondence, avoiding a focus solely on previously studied relationships—such as that with Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, which had been the subject of earlier research by Mirella Poggiagnetti and Aurora Scotti. The correspondence with Pellizza remains the most substantial and well-known body of material, comprising 120 letters and postcards dated from December 5, 1894, to October 15, 1906, but the collection now allows us to broaden the scope to include some fifty correspondents: artists engaged in similar pursuits, such as Vittore Grubicy, Pietro Mengarini, and Cesare Maggi, as well as gallery owners, museum directors, critics, translators, collectors, and figures in the art market.
From this collection emerges a Morbelli who was less reclusive than his historiographical image might suggest. While Vittore Grubicy, in introducing him at the 1888 London exhibition, identified his intemperance as a defining trait—describing him as an artist focused on himself, hardworking, solitary, and melancholic—the papers only partially confirm this image. The correspondence, spanning over two decades from 1888 to 1919, functions as a sort of working diary: it records fluctuations, strategies, attempts, ambitions, and disappointments. Especially after 1893, with the termination of his exclusive contract with the Grubicy family, Morbelli began to exercise increasingly direct control over his own career, revealing organizational and self-promotional skills that were anything but secondary.
A letter from 1914, addressed to Nello Tarchiani, director of the Uffizi Gallery, effectively sums up this awareness. Morbelli writes, in a tone that is both ironic and bitter, that he should not be judged “presumptuous” or “brazen,” because if he does not take action, it is unlikely that others will do so in his place. He adds that, like a traveling merchant, he has to “bother this person and that person to promote his own wares.”
It is primarily through Florence and Rome that Mocchi demonstrates Morbelli’s ability to build relationships outside of Milan: in the former through gallery owners, art dealers, and intermediaries; in the latter through a more institutional relationship with the Society of Lovers and Connoisseurs of Fine Arts.
Among the most interesting Florentine figures to emerge from the correspondence is Rosa Pisani, who since 1895 had owned a gallery located in Palazzo Lenzi, in Piazza Ognissanti—one of the rare female figures in the network of relationships reconstructed from the collection. The first contacts with the Pisani gallery date back to 1892–1893, when a work referred to in the correspondence as *Vecchie al sole* (Old Women in the Sun)—identifiable as *Vecchine curiose* (Curious Old Women)— now housed at the Pinacoteca Divisionismo, was purchased by her husband, Luigi Pisani, at the annual exhibition of the Società di Belle Arti di Firenze. A few years later, thanks to Pellizza’s mediation, the opportunity arose to consign several of Morbelli’s paintings for consignment sale.
It was in this context that the artist proposed *S’avanza*, a work of crucial importance to him, the result of a long creative process, which had just returned from a demanding exhibition tour. The painting, however, remained unsold after nearly two years on display at the Pisani gallery. The reasons emerge clearly from the letters: the difficulty of displaying it in the crowded spaces of the gallery, the price, but above all the somber and sad tone of the subject—one of the recurring themes in the reception of Morbelli’s work. In January 1899, Alfonso Rossi, a collaborator of Rosa Pisani, wrote that *S’avanza* was admired by connoisseurs but not understood by those who were supposed to buy a work of art, and suggested that the artist create less somber and more pleasant subjects, such as the *Vecchine curiose*, which were appreciated even by the uninitiated for the luminous effects of the interior.
This is an important passage because it highlights the ever-present tension between the quality of the work, critical reception, and the marketability of the subject. Morbelli was admired by connoisseurs but not always purchased. His works encounter resistance precisely when they must move beyond the realm of critical acclaim and enter homes, collections, and the realm of private commissions.
Even more revealing is his relationship with Angelo Rizzi, owner of a shop in Florence specializing in frames, carvings, and sculptures on Via Panzani. Rizzi, a figure who was at once a merchant, connoisseur, and intermediary, came into contact with Morbelli in 1910, at a time of growing exhibition and commercial visibility for the artist, following the turning point represented by the 1903 Biennale. In a letter dated February 15, 1910, he proposed to the painter a business relationship based on a “mutually beneficial arrangement”: Rizzi would supply frames, and Morbelli would compensate him with works of art. This exchange brought high art closer to the practical realities of the workshop, materials, and all the objects necessary for the circulation of artworks.
The painting referred to in the correspondence as “old women in the snow”—identifiable as *I due inverni* (The Two Winters), a key work in Morbelli’s oeuvre—also revolves around this relationship. Morbelli describes it as a snowy scene outside the window, featuring the old women of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio. The painting had been exhibited in Venice in 1903, then in Vienna, Munich, Rome, and Buenos Aires, and had been rejected twice by the jury of the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. After being displayed in Rizzi’s shop, the painting was offered—through Rizzi’s mediation—to Nello Tarchiani, initiating a lengthy negotiation that was, however, destined to remain unresolved. Morbelli was unable to sell either this work or another painting exhibited at the 1914 Ussi Prize.
“First Mass in Burano” also fits into this same narrative, linked to possible exchanges between Morbelli and Rizzi. The documents allow us to trace the details of these exchanges and, above all, to clarify chronological issues that had previously been uncertain: by comparing letters, exhibitions, and works, it is possible to establish with greater certainty which version was presented on a given occasion, as in the case of the painting exhibited in the winter of 1911–1912 at Palazzo Strozzi.
The Rome section of the correspondence allows us to trace another central aspect of Morbelli’s work: his return to the same subjects. A painting exhibited in 1907 at the Società degli Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti was, in fact, created as a slightly modified second version of a work presented at the 1906 Mostra del Sempione, which had already been sold and transferred to the collections in Buenos Aires. The letters thus make it possible to reconstruct not only the reception of an image but also the way in which the artist reworked his subjects in response to requests, destinations, and new exhibition opportunities.
Rome also provides a way to gauge Morbelli’s influence on certain Divisionist artists, particularly Pietro Mengarini, a complex figure who was also active in the theater world. An almost religious admiration emerges from the correspondence: Mengarini goes so far as to compare Morbelli’s works to a “Gospel” and to “the words of an apostle.” These are certainly emphatic expressions, but they help us understand the role the artist played for a younger generation, still attached to the idea of a group of “complementarists” and to the plan for an exhibition capable of bringing them together.
One of the most significant statements to emerge during the event also refers to this loyalty to Divisionist painting: in 1913, as Futurism was gaining ground, Morbelli still described himself as an “unrepentant Divisionist.” In the same papers, however, doubt also surfaces: the artist acknowledges that he may have “become bogged down” in the chemical technique of color for too long, leading to the bitter realization of “how many years may have been lost.” It is a passage that reveals a Morbelli who was stubborn, yet not blind to the transformations of modernity.
In a January 1910 letter to Luigi Calcaterra, a Milanese dealer in art supplies, Morbelli points out the problem with ready-made tubes of paint, which, when applied in layers using the Divisionist technique, tended to “become gummy.” A detail that is only seemingly marginal but which, however, reveals how, behind the luminous surface of the paintings, there lies concrete work with the material, the testing of colors, and the technical effort involved in painting.
Alessandro Botta continued the discussion on international relations with a presentation dedicated to Angelo Morbelli and Gerolamo Cairati. The latter emerges from the correspondence as a key figure in the artist’s presence on the German art scene: a fellow painter, cultural promoter, and mentor capable of guiding him between Munich and Berlin. As the Italian commissioner for the Munich International Exhibition, Cairati invited Morbelli to participate with *In risaia*, also asking him for a photograph of the work; in 1901, he also informed him of an invitation from the Berlin Artists’ Association, with the possibility of subsequently transferring the works to the international exhibition the following spring. Alongside his practical role, the letters also reveal personal support: Cairati defended Morbelli against criticism of his “divided” painting style and encouraged him to continue without being intimidated by the attacks.
The event then broadened the perspective to include local networks, artistic committees, and the cultural dimension of the Monferrato region. Sandra Berresford, art historian and curator of the Bistolfi Archive at the Civic Museum and Bistolfi Plaster Cast Gallery in Casale Monferrato, dedicated her presentation to the relationship between Ercole Arturo Marescotti, Giovanni Buffa, and Angelo Morbelli, integrating documents from the Tortona collection with those preserved in the Bistolfi Archive. Through Marescotti—a multifaceted figure who was a musician, journalist, and cultural promoter—Berresford highlighted Morbelli’s involvement in a network of committees, local initiatives, and projects linked to Monferrato. Marescotti’s critical stance is also noteworthy: while he was harsh toward Bistolfi—whose style he deemed excessively literary and artificially constructed—and initially wary of Divisionism, he made an exception for Pellizza and Morbelli.
Another central theme of the day was addressed by Silvestra Bietoletti, who reconstructed the relationship between Angelo Morbelli and the Ussi Competitions held by the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence in 1914 and 1919. The scholar cross-referenced the documents from the Tortona collection with those preserved in Florence at the Academy—documents that are not always well-preserved, partly due to the 1966 flood. On November 26, 1913, Morbelli wrote to the president of the Academy to announce his intention to enter the Ussi Prize with a painting set in the church of San Celso, a subject that had interested him for over twenty years.
The Ussi Prize had been established in 1900 at the behest of Stefano Ussi, a Tuscan painter, with precise rules and a substantial endowment: the five-year endowment was to be awarded to an Italian artist, selected by a five-member jury, and the winning work would remain at the Academy. In 1913, the Academy’s governing body introduced a provision that Morbelli viewed very favorably: the excellence of the work had to be free from the conventions of any particular school and from the artist’s specific formal experimentation. According to Bietoletti, it may have been precisely this openness that convinced Morbelli to participate in 1914. The prize was 16,000 lire, a very substantial sum, especially for an artist who would face increasingly severe financial difficulties during the war years.
When the paintings arrived in Florence, they were placed at the headquarters of the Florentine Promotrice on Via della Colonna, which had been renovated in 1905 for the First Tuscan Art Exhibition. The exhibition opened on March 23, 1914, and the press highlighted the care with which the works had been displayed. Morbelli’s painting was placed on the second floor, in the rooms considered the most beautiful, and was initially met with very positive reviews. The quality of the work was recognized by several critics, who cited it as one of the works worthy of the prize. Particularly important, according to Bietoletti’s interpretation, is the rendering of the floor and the light: the ability to achieve transparency and atmospheric dust through the purity of the colors, marking a culmination of Morbelli’s Divisionist exploration.
The formation of the jury, however, proved to be fraught with difficulties: amid withdrawals, replacements, and controversies, the press went so far as to ridicule a committee that seemed to be falling apart even before the final decision. It was within this unstable climate that Morbelli’s exclusion from the prize took shape.
On May 5, 1914, the jury cast its vote. Pietro Fragiacomo’s painting, displayed in the same room as Morbelli’s, was unanimously awarded the prize. According to the interpretation put forward that day, Fragiacomo’s victory also reflected the antipathy felt by some jury members toward Morbelli.
On May 7, the artist requested that the painting be returned to him in Milan. In the meantime, however, the possibility arose of the Ministry purchasing it for the nascent Gallery of Modern Art in Florence. Nello Tarchiani and Corrado Ricci considered the possibility of acquiring the painting, while Ezio Marzi attempted to organize a fundraising campaign among artists. Morbelli put a stop to this latter option: he preferred the Ministry’s purchase, aware of the greater institutional significance that a public display would have for his work. Here, too, emotional reaction and strategic clarity coexist.
In 1919, despite the disappointment of 1914, economic hardships, and the atmosphere of war, Morbelli once again considered entering the Ussi Prize. The documents reveal an anxious, weary artist who was still drawn to the idea of public recognition. The proposal seems to have been for a small landscape without figures, for which the artist considered titles such as *O pax* or *Raggio di sole*, before deciding not to enter the competition.
During the course of the day, the indirect way in which the war entered the artist’s later work also came to light. A particularly poignant reference concerns *Il telegramma* (*The Telegram*), a painting in which the deceased does not appear. There is no body, no battle scene, and no front line. What remains is a set table, a maid sitting in tears, and the telegram left on the table. The power of the image stems precisely from this absence: war as news that bursts into the domestic space, like a piece of paper that interrupts lunch. In another painting held by the Fondazione Cariplo, featuring a female figure seen from behind on a boat with a flag fluttering, the reference to the conflict remains allusive.
The theme of piecing together the correspondence was a central focus of the second half of the day, demonstrating how the Morbelli Collection cannot be viewed as a self-contained whole. Letters, by their very nature, are scattered across different archives: some remain with the sender, others with the recipient, and still others end up in family, institutional, or private collections. The scholar’s task, then, is to re-establish a dialogue between these fragments, bringing to light new relationships, more precise chronologies, changes in ownership, and the reasons behind their display.
This perspective was introduced by Stefania Circosta, an archivist at the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendence of Piedmont and the Aosta Valley. Her presentation emphasized the nature of artist archives, in which personal memory intertwines with creative and professional activity. In Morbelli’s case, letters, technical notes, handwritten notebooks, and working documents reveal not only what the artist did but also how his practice evolved over time.
Of particular significance is the collection presented by Stefano Meriana, historian and restorer, consisting of several letters by Morbelli preserved by the heirs of Professor Italiano Passardi, the former owner of a version of *Credenti (...incensum Domine!) * purchased by Ottavio Galateri di Cherasco. The 1890 version of the painting was one of the artist’s earliest Divisionist works and depicted a group of worshippers in prayer at the Church of San Celso in Milan. The correspondence examined by Meriana includes five letters from Morbelli, four notes, and several replies from Count Galateri. Morbelli wrote to Galateri to request that the painting be loaned for the Milanese exhibition *La pittura lombarda nel secolo XIX* (*Lombard Painting in the 19th Century*), held at the Permanente. To convince him, he recalled the gold medal the painting had won and emphasized the significance the work’s presence would have in an anthological exhibition.
Here we see the meticulous Morbelli once again, almost obsessive in his attention to practical details. Although generally frugal, he declares himself willing to cover the costs of transportation and insurance; he then goes into detail about the packing procedures, suggesting that the painting be placed in the crate with the front facing the viewer and protected by paper or newspapers secured in such a way as to prevent stains and dust. It is a technical detail, to be sure, but it speaks volumes about the painter: his care for the physical integrity of the work, his attention to its handling, and his awareness of the physical risk that every loan entails.
The count, by contrast, responds tersely, concerned above all with practical matters and the timing of the painting’s return. This social and temperamental distance makes the correspondence particularly entertaining. Morbelli seeks complicity; he insists, argues, and urges the owner to consider the possibility of lending the work again and, perhaps, even selling it. In one letter, after recalling the recognition he has received abroad, he drops a particularly harsh remark: abroad, he writes, he is treated “a little less like a dog” than in his homeland. The remark, tinged with both pride and bitterness, confirms a sentiment that had already emerged in other correspondence: Morbelli constantly gauges the gap between international recognition and the resistance he encounters in Italian art circles.
The most curious case concerns the loan to Berlin. Morbelli informs Galateri, somewhat belatedly, that the painting has already left for Germany. Preceding the letter is a drawing of a fiasco inside a garland—a symbol the artist had also inscribed on the envelope containing the documents for the 1901 Munich exhibition. Here, the “fiasco” should be understood in its ironic and almost superstitious sense, distinct from the skulls mentioned in other contexts: Morbelli fears adding to the number of “fiascos” should the count refuse the loan, but in the meantime, the painting is already on its way. The opportunity, according to the artist, was too important to let slip by: six months more or less away, he essentially writes, could be worth the chance of a sale and renewed international recognition.
In the same correspondence, Morbelli even goes so far as to propose sending a *Ballerina* in exchange for the prolonged absence of *Credenti*, almost as if to compensate the owner with temporary pictorial company. This passage reveals a diplomatic, ironic, and persistent Morbelli, willing to negotiate and use his works as tools for building relationships. From this point on, his relationship with Galateri seems to cool. The count laments the painting’s prolonged absence, asks for information on its return, and then, in 1913, makes it clear that the work is no longer available for either sale or loan. After Galateri’s death in 1918, the painting was sold, and the family’s final correspondence even reveals a request to return the packing crate and the quilts, which were not included in the price.
The day concluded with a presentation by Cinzia Lacchia, curator of the Francesco Borgogna Museum Foundation in Vercelli, dedicated to the Fourth International Rice Congress and the 1912 Art Exhibition of the Vercelli Irrigation District. At the center was *Per ottanta centesimi!* (*For Eighty Centesimi!*), one of Morbelli’s best-known and most socially incisive paintings, linked to the work of female rice-paddy workers and life in the rice paddies. The collection allows us to situate the work within a specific context, where art, the agricultural economy, women’s labor, and social representation intertwine.
Among the elements that have come to light is also a satirical clipping related to the reception of the painting—an important detail because it shows how a work could circulate not only in exhibitions and catalogs but also through forms of commentary, irony, and public parody. For Eighty Cents! thus appears not merely as an image of labor in the rice paddies, but as a painting embedded within a network of exhibitions, conferences, and discourses on agriculture and modernization.
Ultimately, the Angelo Morbelli Collection thus appears to be more than just a finally organized archive. It does not merely add documents to an already well-known biography but shifts the very way we view the artist. The papers reveal a Morbelli who was active, restless, and often ironic: a painter who tracked the circulation of his own works, dealt with collectors and institutions, recorded rejections and missed opportunities, oversaw packaging, reproduced subjects demanded by the market, participated in committees, sought public recognition, and remained, until the very end, an “unrepentant Divisionist.”
The collection does not replace the works, but places them back within the system of relationships, tensions, and necessities from which they arise and through which they circulate. Behind the divided light of the paintings, the artist’s less visible work thus emerges: the physical toil of painting, the anxiety for recognition, the calculation of exhibition strategies, the irony of failures, and the skull symbolizing lost opportunities.
The author of this article: Francesca Anita Gigli
Francesca Anita Gigli, nata nel 1995, è giornalista e content creator. Collabora con Finestre sull’Arte dal 2022, realizzando articoli per l’edizione online e cartacea. È autrice e voce di Oltre la tela, podcast realizzato con Cubo Unipol, e di Intelligenza Reale, prodotto da Gli Ascoltabili. Dal 2021 porta avanti Likeitalians, progetto attraverso cui racconta l’arte sui social, collaborando con istituzioni e realtà culturali come Palazzo Martinengo, Silvana Editoriale e Ares Torino. Oltre all’attività online, organizza eventi culturali e laboratori didattici nelle scuole. Ha partecipato come speaker a talk divulgativi per enti pubblici, tra cui il Fermento Festival di Urgnano e più volte all’Università di Foggia. È docente di Social Media Marketing e linguaggi dell’arte contemporanea per la grafica.Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.
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