Francesco Hayez, Matilde Pirovano Visconti, About 1840, Oil on canvas, Private Collection

The exhibition entitled The Venetian portrait of the nineteenth century represents a unique opportunity to reconstruct the exhibition of the same name organized and set up in 1923 by Nino Barbantini, first Director of the Gallery of Modern Art of Ca' Pesaro. The exhibition, which at the time met with enormous success both among the public and the press, is today considered a fundamental event for the rediscovery of 19th century Venetian art, for the beginning of the study of its protagonists and the valorisation of many of the masterpieces that were presented on that occasion. The works on display - 241 works by fifty artists, including painters, sculptors and miniaturists - coming not only from Venice but also from Treviso, Bassano, Padua, Trieste, Belluno, Udine or Pordenone, allow us to discover, today as then, anew together, the faces of many protagonists of society, art and cultural life of a vast geographical area through which the learned Barbantini managed to collect the works which revealed, for the first time, the artistic importance of a century placed in the background compared to the exaltation of the previous one.

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