Giuseppe Ricci Oddi

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Giuseppe Ricci Oddi ( October 6, 1868 in Piacenza - October 23, 1937 ) was an Italian art collector who built a museum for his collections in Piacenza in 1931, the Galleria d'arte moderna Ricci Oddi with 400 works of art from the 19th and 20th centuries Century. His main focus was on collecting landscapes and portraits.

In February 1997 the portrait of a woman by Gustav Klimt , acquired by Oddi in 1925, was reported stolen. It was one of the most wanted works of art in the world for more than 22 years and was rediscovered in a hidden storage room of the museum in December 2019.

Life

Giuseppe Ricci Oddi was the only son of Carlo Ricci Oddi and Carolina Ceresa. He came from an old noble family. From 1882 to 1887 he attended the municipal grammar school and the royal grammar school Melchiorre Gioia without passing the Abitur. He therefore enrolled at the Turin Law Faculty for individual lectures. He graduated from high school and then studied at the law faculty of Rome. At the age of 29, his mother gave him an entire floor of her house in via Poggiali.

Giuseppe Ricci Oddi bought his first two paintings in 1898, one by Francesco Filippini and another by Gaetano Previati . After that, distracted from the various sporting activities, the passion for art took a back seat. New purchases followed in 1902: Mosè Bianchi's return from pasture and sheep at the source by Stefano Bruzzi . In the following years he was advised by Carlo Pennaroli, an accountant with a passion for art, himself an amateur painter. In 1909 and 1910 the two men visited the Biennale di Venezia and numerous artist studios in Milan, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Francavilla a Mare. From 1911 on, his passion for collecting intensified and many acquisitions followed at high speed. In 1913, the Milanese merchant Giovanni Torelli brokered five paintings by Antonio Mancini , the collector's favorite painter, and also sold him for the first time a painting by Antonio Fontanesi , an artist who would later have its own room in the museum. Purchases were also made in the war years, albeit a little less. In some cases, the collector benefited from a certain drop in prices, but in some cases he also paid considerable amounts, for example 8,000 lire in 1916 for Francesco Paolo Michetti's Morticino (funeral procession). From 1913 he was looking for a building for his collection, in 1924 he decided to donate his collection to the city of Piacenza and build a building himself at his own expense. In his will, which he drew up shortly before his sudden death, he bequeathed almost all of his fortune to the museum in order to enable the museum's economic independence.

collection

The collection of Giuseppe Ricci Oddi mainly includes works by Italian artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including works by Giuseppe Abbati , Giuseppe Amisani , Umberto Boccioni , Massimo Campigli , Felice Carena , Carlo Carrà , Felice Casorati , Bruno Cassinari , Giuseppe De Nittis , Filippo De Pisis , Giovanni Fattori , Francesco Filippini , Antonio Fontanesi , Achille Funi , Giacomo Grosso , Francesco Hayez , Gerolamo Induno , Silvestro Lega , Antonio Mancini , Francesco Paolo Michetti , Domenico Morelli , Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo , Medardo Rosso , Giulio Aristide Sartorio , Giovanni Segantini , Telemaco Signorini , Adolfo Wildt and Federico Zandomeneghi .

There are only three paintings by Klimt in Italian collections, Judith II in Venice, The Three Ages of Woman in Rome and the Portrait of a Woman in the Giuseppe Ricci Oddi Collection in Piacenza, which was reported stolen from February 1997 to December 2019. The portrait of a woman is currently in safe custody, will then be restored and then returned to the museum. (As of June 2020).

museum

Museum garden

From 1913 Giuseppe Ricci Oddi looked for a suitable building for his works of art. Numerous purchase negotiations failed. Finally, Ricci Oddi decided to build a new museum building at his own expense - on the site of the former S. Siro monastery, which the municipality had made available free of charge. The architect Giulio Ulisse Arata made the plans in 1924 and 1925. The result was an innovative building for the time with natural light from above, in geometric simplicity. The Galleria d'arte moderna Ricci Oddi was completed in 1931. Representatives of the royal family came to the opening .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Giuseppe Ricci Oddi , accessed on February 12, 2020
  2. ↑ strategy matrimoniali e stratificazione nobiliare. Il caso di Piacenza (XIX secolo) Actes du colloque de Rome, November 21-23, 1985 , accessed June 23, 2020
  3. ↑ Piacenza , accessed June 23, 2020
  4. ↑ La prima collezione , accessed on June 23, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Ricci Oddi, Giuseppe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian art collector and museum founder
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Piacenza
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1937
Place of death Piacenza