Mosè Bianchi (Monza 1840-1904) is certainly the most famous and popular Monza painter. For a long time, his name coincided with the evocation of a ‘Monza-ness’ to be proud of, so much so that in the 1920s the Municipal Administration dedicated a town monument to him exemplified by the portrait on display here, painted by Luigi Secchi.
The Bianchi family was a family of painters: their father Giosuè, their brother Gerardo and their equally famous nephews Pompeo Mariani and Emilio Borsa contributed to giving consistency to a local artistic tradition that critics have often referred to as the ‘School of Monza’.
On display in this section are two graphic works related to the practice of fresco painting, an ancient technique that Moses Bianchi practised in the central years of his work.
The female figure represents the personification of History within a pictorial cycle frescoed by Bianchi in neo-eighteenth-century forms in the Villa Giovanelli, in Lonigo (Vicenza), in 1877.
A few years later (1883), however, is the large preparatory cartoon of the Savoy Genius, a painting later realised by Mosè Bianchi on the ceiling of the Saletta Reale in Monza Station. The work was commissioned to the painter by the city, which wanted to pay homage to the Savoy family for their presence in Monza with a work by their most illustrious fellow-citizen artist.
01: Pompeo Mariani, Portrait of Mosè Bianchi. Oil on canvas, 1900-1904
02: Luigi Secchi, Portrait of Mosè Bianchi. Bronze, 1912
03: Mosè Bianchi, Study for the Figure of “History”. Charcoal and pencil on paper glued on canvas, 1877
04: Mosè Bianchi, Cartoon for the painting “Il Genio di Savoia”. Charcoal and chalk on paper, 1883
05: Mosè Bianchi, Sketch for “The Genius of Savoy”. Oil on canvas with paper insert, 1883-1884