Consonances
Modena, Civic Museum
24 January – 29 November 2026
The Consonances project came about to create valuable occasions for dialogue with public and private institutions, to make the rich heritage preserved in storage visible, and to highlight connections between the Museum’s many collections.
The collections of Matteo Campori (room 13) and Carlo Sernicoli (room 16) become a privileged place for this encounter, with the rearrangement of the temporary exhibits area.
The first consonance arises from a collaboration with the collection of the Galleria BPER, through the loan of two important paintings by Elisabetta Sirani, The Madonna Nursing the Child and Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, placed in dialogue with the Museum’s famous Galatea.
From storage, on the other hand, come the two Portraits of Ladies by the circle of Cesare Gennari, displayed in fascinating dialogue with a selection of fabrics from the Gandini collection and the antique prints arranged in the grids of the Campori room.
The two portraits, part of a series of four very similar canvases, after a generic attribution to Justus Suttermans, were later attributed to the circle of Cesare Gennari (Cento, 1637 – Bologna, 1688), the nephew of Guercino, and can be linked to the celebratory portraiture that spread with great success in Emilia in the 17th and 18th centuries, a genre of painting always careful to underscore the great naturalness of attitudes, even when dealing with aristocratic figures. In these canvases the artist gives us the image of two women, perhaps mother and daughter, who, even while flaunting all of their sumptuous elegance, let a simple and sincere human side shine through their gaze. What characterizes the two ladies above all is the technical expertise with which their dresses are meticulously described, the details of which, in perfect harmony with the stylistic characteristics, date back to around the end of the third quarter of the 17th century, when the austere costumes imposed by Spain throughout Europe for about a century had by then given way to French fashion. The younger lady is wearing a dress consisting of a corset and a skirt that is open in front, made of a silk fabric with wide stripes, adorned with bobbin lace that seems to be made of spun silver. The older woman, on the other hand, as is befitting of her advanced age, is wearing a surcoat of a single fabric, perhaps velvet; the bows shine on the black with silver highlights on the sides of the opening, which is lined with an exquisite matching lace. The gold-colored petticoat is embellished with elaborate metallic embroidery. In both dresses, the sleeves are narrowed at the elbows and shortened, allowing the muslin shirt decorated with ribbons to peek out, and the neckline, though modestly covered by the bobbin lace flounce in white linen, is open from shoulder to shoulder in keeping with the norms. Among the accessories, in addition to the obligatory string of pearls around the necks of both women, the younger one also has strings of pearls wrapped around her wrists and a beautiful cross set with precious stones. The older one is wearing earrings with diamonds and rubies that match the design of the medallion on her chest and is showing off a gold watch hanging from a long chain attached to her belt and a pair of gloves, perhaps of silk, draped over a fan.
Lucia Peruzzi
Captions:
Circle of Cesare Gennari
(Cento, Ferrara 1637 – Bologna 1688)
Portrait of Maria Francesca di Savoia-Nemours (?)
circa 1670
Oil on canvas
On the left wall
Circle of Cesare Gennari
(Cento, Ferrara 1637 – Bologna 1688)
Portrait of a Lady
circa 1670
Oil on canvas
In the display cases
First display case
Ornamental textiles from the Gandini collection
The rigid armor of the female clothing of the early 17th century, closed by high ruffs and lace cuffs dictated by Spanish fashion, gave way over the course of the century to new sumptuous designs that enveloped the female body in softer, more sensual garments. Along with sartorial styles, the types of fabric also underwent a radical transformation. Symmetrical and small-repeat designs were replaced by freer compositions largely inspired by flora imported from the East, which better interpreted the guiding principles of the Baroque: tulips, irises, lilies, daffodils, and fritillaries bloom along tendrils that unfurl and curl in curvilinear forms, lending movement to the compositions.
Technical solutions appear more varied and new genres are added to the traditional velvets and damasks through the use of brocade weaves on satin backgrounds. Striped backgrounds, like the one we see in the young lady’s dress, overlaid with a dense weave of free-flowing rinceaux, are a novelty in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.
As French fashion gradually gained in popularity, the fabrics of women’s clothing were embellished with lace, braided trim and embroidery. These enriched the garments, covering petticoats, lining the edges of necklines and corsets, and even covering the puffed sleeves, sometimes cinched with bows of metallic thread, sometimes with red silk ribbons.
The identification of fabrics, laces, embroideries and trim depicted in the two portraits and their comparison with the materials from the Gandini collection illustrates the numerous similarities between the antique artifacts and those reproduced by the skill and imagination of the artist who painted them.
Marta Cuoghi Costantini, Iolanda Silvestri
Captions:
1
Lombardy (?), third quarter of the 17th century
Bobbin lace border
White linen
2
Italy or France, last quarter of the 17th century
Textured fabric with Peking look. Polychrome silks
3
Lombardy, late 17th century
Bobbin lace border
White linen
4
Flanders, mid-17th century
Bobbin lace border
White linen
5
Italy or France, last quarter of the 17th century
Textured fabric with Peking look. Polychrome silks
Second display case
1
France (?), second half of the 17th century
Bobbin lace trim. Silver and gold thread
2
Pierre Le Seyne
Watch with original case
Paris, 1560-1648
Mario Giberti donation, 2022
3
17th century
Collar in bobbin and needle lace. Beige linen
Giberti donation, 2022, inv. TES.C.374
4
Northern Italy, second half of the 17th century
Bobbin lace border. Silver and gold thread
5
Italy or Spain, last quarter of the 17th century – early 18th century
Bobbin lace trim. Silver and gold thread