Consonances (2)

Modena, Civic Museum
24 January – 29 November 2026

The story of the very short life and the incessant artistic activity of Elisabetta Sirani (Bologna, 1638-1655), a protagonist of seventeenth-century Emilian painting, can be summed up in the illuminating definition of “virtuous woman” and “heroine painter” coined by Carlo Cesare Malvasia, who in his Felsina Pittrice (1678) dedicates moving pages to Elisabetta and her works made of poetry and drama, delicacy and intimacy, in an always-admired dialogue with her father Giovanni Andrea, the most important pupil of Guido Reni. As a woman, Elisabetta could not attend the life drawing lessons held in her father’s academy, but she could practice by copying the works in her father’s studio and had free access to the extensive home library, where she devoted herself to constant reading of classical texts. The very young Elisabetta soon became famous for her small-format paintings with sacred subjects, often executed on the spot before the admiring eyes of her fans. The Madonna Nursing the Child, commissioned in 1658 by Father Bovio di San Gregorio, and the Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, dated 1660, are part of this type of production, a sort of transposition of prayer into an artistic creation that shows the deepest and most delicate nuances of her faith, as well as her great skill, which would earn her prestigious commissions. This is the case with the valuable painting depicting Galatea, created for the Marquis Ferdinando Cospi, which in its choice of the theme is tied to the marquis’s naturalistic interests, but also reveals Elisabetta’s fascination with Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from which the episode is taken, and with the images of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia. The signature, sewn in gold into the weave of almost all of her canvases, is hidden this time on the edge of the cushion on which Galatea is reclining. It played a very important role in the professional recognition of women in a world in which artistic creativity was seen as a purely masculine quality. This was especially true in Elisabetta’s case, where the aura of fame surrounding her was mixed with a strong skepticism around the authenticity of her works. All this despite the fact that, as a true professional, she was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome and founded her own academy open to young women in her hometown, even taking over the reins of her father’s studio and supporting the entire family with her work.

Lucia Peruzzi

Captions:

Elisabetta Sirani
The Madonna Nursing the Child
1658
Oil on canvas
Modena, La Galleria BPER

Elisabetta Sirani
Saint John the Baptist in the Desert
1660
Oil on canvas
Modena, La Galleria BPER