The woman in the armchair is a recent new acquisition of the Capuchin Museum together with the works in permanent storage of the Rusconi collection.

The painting is part of one of the numerous examples of this subject painted by Umberto Boccioni in the years in which his inspiring muses were the important women of his life: his mother Cecilia, his sister Raffaella Amalia, his cousin Adriana Bisi Fabbri and Ines, the beloved woman.

The work is part of the first production of the artist who, having arrived in Milan in 1907, came into contact with various artists, and who in 1909 felt the desire to get closer to those more avant-garde and experimental figures. In fact, he wanted to meet those who had already joined the newborn Futurist Movement, of which he himself would later be part. Among these was the poet Luciano Folgore whom Boccioni wanted to pay homage by sending him his own work, on the back of which, instead of writing a dedication and sending it with an accompanying note, he quickly drew a portrait in the form of a caricature of Folgore himself.

The work comes from the property of Luciano Folgore's family and, in the upper part of the back on which Boccioni drew the caricature, the painter's widow, Valentina Folgore, described the curious story: "I, the undersigned Valentina Folgore, declare that the oil painting on the back of this cartoon where the caricature of Luciano Folgore is drawn in watercolor is done by Boccioni, it belonged to Luciano Folgore who had received it as a gift from Boccioni himself. Valentina Folgore ".

In the realization of the woman in an armchair Boccioni already poses himself as an experimenter of light and movement, in painting a figure in which some features are indefinite (the expression and physiognomy of the face) perhaps a memory and recovery of past impressionist characters, while with a extreme clarity deals with the plastic and quick pose of crossing the legs.

Periferia by Mario Sironi became part of the heritage of the Capuchin Museum in Milan with the Rusconi Collection in 2019.

The years in which Sironi creates Urban Landscapes are those immediately after the First World War. For years they have seen the artist busy painting many suburbs of Milan, the city he moved to permanently in 1919.
Milan provokes him "disgust" as he himself writes to his wife Matilde, but at the same time he needs to bring back the monumentality and glory in his paintings, painting the architecture of the time that is contemporary to him. Urban landscapes metaphorically represent the will to rebuild after the world conflict, both in a concrete and an ideal sense. There is a need for body, material, and this is why the city is not the subject of the painting but its architecture, forms and solidity that they express and then contrast with the "tragic" of the further elements of the painting. Perhaps this is why its buildings, its cities need stability and harmony, to free themselves from any frills to arrive at a synthesis.
The city of Sironi is an incredible simplification of forms that combines classic firmitas with a modern style inspired by the lessons of Aldo Rossi's rationalist architecture.

1922 saw Sironi being one of the souls of the newborn artistic group of the twentieth century, supported by Margherita Sarfatti. The “modern classicism” built according to harmonious proportions and the painting of things to immobilize them in eternity, according to the Platonic and idealist suggestions of the time, are transported with a certain rigor in the series of Urban Landscapes.

The shapes of the periphery of the Rusconi collection have a vertical trend, the looming side buildings are a scenography that opens, leaving space in a central position for a chimney that with its height creates a vertical line in the painting, continued by two characters without identity and faceless which are located in the lower part.
The volumes of the buildings are hewn like sculptures and strong, the tones are those of gray.

Palazzo Ducale is an oil painting on plywood panel dated 1947 by Luigi Filippo Tibertelli, who had assumed the pseudonym of Filippo de Pisis and who was staying in Venice in those years after leaving Milan following the first bombings of August 1943. The plate is signed lower right.

In Venice de Pisis, in January of the same year he bought a small building in San Sebastiano where he took up residence the following year. This painting is located in a fruitful period, in which the master devoted himself to the outdoor shooting of numerous views of the city, including the view of the Doge's Palace, presented in its southern facade, towards the basin of San Marco with the presence in front of the column of San Marco, of which he returns, with full-bodied brushstrokes, the statue of the winged lion.

Below is the succession of arcades of the portico on the ground floor of the building, while at the bottom you can see the Ponte della Paglia on which numerous figures move, drawn with small and rapid touches of color, and which give the painting particular liveliness.

The painting by Carlo Carrà , Marina con vela proposes the landscape subject that for the Alexandrian painter from Quargnento had become very frequent starting especially from the third decade of the last century. The medium-sized work bears the artist's signature at the bottom left, inserted semi-hidden among the vegetation and as usual by the initials of the name alone, the "C" of Carlo and the surname written in capital letters and underlined .

Dated 1945, this seascape was particularly loved by the collector Giancarlo Rusconi who appreciated the vitality expressed in the movement of the sails, so distant from the first Carrà nature paintings in the 1920s. It is precisely in the inclination of the sails that we grasp the nature immortalized on a day of rough sea, which foams at the reliefs of the coast, and of which the fresh splashes in the foreground are captured at the strip of land that separates the observer from the sea.

The painting became part of the artistic heritage of the Capuchin Cultural Heritage in 1968 following the Ferrandi bequest, and is exhibited on the second floor of the Capuchin Museum. The place portrayed is the Giardino alla Colma, the garden of the family home in Colma di Rosignano, in Monferrato, where the artist alternated his residence with Milan.

The garden was a privileged place for experimentation with an en plein air painting in search of a greater truth of light, color and shadows, moving within the divisionist artistic phenomenon that, in addition to Morbelli himself, saw among its exponents Segantini, Pellizza by Volpedo and Previati.

After some experimentation in the years 1880-1890, Morbelli increases the production of "pure landscapes" starting from 1909. They are landscapes without figures but with elements of geometric scansion of space (benches, shaped shrubs, terracing) that give structural and chromatic coordinates of relevant bright contrast. The Giardino alla Colma, together with other chronologically close paintings, ( Angolo di Giardino , 1910, Giannone di Novara Collection and Angolo di giardino , 1912, Musei Civici di Roma) offers an example of strong luminosity translated into a vibrant texture of colors, for whose execution Morbelli had long since adopted a series of brushes of different consistency and different workmanship. In fact, with these brushes, he scissors the tips of the bristles to obtain more regular streak effects, while at the same time he also scratched the surface with a kind of rigid-tipped brush to enhance the contrast between the colors.

The main element of the composition is the balancing of horizontal rhythms with the tree on the right. Pointillism skilfully applied to small lines in the garden path becomes thin pattering in the line of the hills on the horizon, thus obtaining an elegantly decorative vibrating of warm and cold lights.

Since its opening, the Capuchin Museum has exhibited a precious drawing by Camillo Procaccini closely linked to the altarpiece of the ancient Milanese church of the Immaculate Conception, that of the convent of Porta Orientale.

The news regarding the provenance of the drawing dates back to the 19th century when a member of the noble Pezzoli family gave it to the Capuchin friars, who have always been firm supporters of the Immaculate Conception of Mary sanctioned by Pope Pius IX with a dogma on 8 December 1854. It is probable therefore that Pezzoli donated it on that occasion to the Capuchin friars.

The work, which appears as a collage composed of at least three parts cut out and glued on cardboard, due to the accuracy of the workmanship and the precision of many details is to be considered as an autonomous work in close relationship with the altarpiece that Procaccini created for the church of the Immaculate Conception. " The panel on the Altar in Painting, in which Our Lady looks in the midst of a large group of Angels, also treading a snake with St. Francis in the upper right, colored Camillo Procaccini ", this is how Carlo Torre describes the altarpiece. altar of the Convent of Porta Orientale in his guide Portrait of Milan , in 1714.

This church was suppressed and destroyed in 1810. Many of his works were lost but today it is considered that the altarpiece is identifiable in the one kept in the church of Ognissanti in San Giorgio in Bergamo.

The work presents a rare iconographic solution of the Immaculate Conception: surrounded by a celestial glory (with the Trinity and the angels divided into ranks, extraordinarily characterized with iconographic references that refer to the biblical text), with a crown of twelve stars but without the moon under his feet, the Virgin crushes the dragon (which has only one head instead of the seven described in the book of Revelation). Near her, St. Francis in the Capuchin habit, kneeling, offers her a lily among the thorns ( lilium inter spinas : quotation from the Song of Songs describing the election of the beloved, who has become the image of Mary). In the cartouche that wraps the branch of lilies and thorns we read “Sic Tu Mater Nostra” which confirms that the Virgin Mary is, like the beloved of the Song of Songs, a lily among the thorns, chosen among all women.

An important piece of the Museo dei Cappuccini in Milan is the Veil of Veronica consistently attributed to Guercino, an Emilian painter active in the seventeenth century.

The work depicts the face of the Passion of Christ imprinted on a cloth, an iconography that begins to develop in the context of Nordic painting, which represents it as an ecstatic image so as to make it a devotional effigy par excellence. In Italy this motif spreads from the end of the fifteenth century, thanks to the presence of some illustrious Flemish examples, who experimented with some success this iconographic formula.

The canvas is fully inserted within the iconographic tradition linked to the holy relic of the Veil of Veronica, a cloth on which the face of Christ is imprinted on the way to Calvary. The spotlights are focused on the suffering face of Christ, carefully constructing his somatic features, wavy hair and gnarled crown of thorns.

The reference to Guercino is justifiable in formal terms, given the type of face, the enameled drafting, full of warm and chiaroscuro lights and the interpretation of the subject in ecstatic and softened terms. Finally, consistent with the standards reached by the painter is the high quality of the work, where the virtuosity of the execution and the capacity for stylistic and mental investigation offer a highly suggestive result.

Gustav Adolf Amberger, of whom not much is known about his life, is one of those young artists who left for the Grand Tour, the tour of the main cities and areas of artistic and cultural interest considered an essential part of artistic education among the XVIII and XIX century. A fundamental destination of the trip was Italy, with its cities of art, art and antiques collections and the archaeological remains recently brought to light.

The German painter, during his stay in Italy and in particular in Sicily, reproduces on canvas, which he signs at the bottom left, the view of the ruins of the ancient Greek theater of Taormina as it appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century, leaving it visible in the background the Ionian coast on one side and the smoking peak of Etna on the other.

Although the theater is abandoned and its ruins are barely recognized, with columns and structural elements piled on the ground and partly covered by vegetation, the splendid and certainly unique position had made this place one of the favorites of the Grand Tour.

This is still the typical romantic landscape, in which nature dominates, with some signs of glorious antiquity and few human figures. On the right we see a child lying on the grass, a woman with a traditional dress and a basket, and finally a man well seated on the lawn. Close by, facing the theater and beyond towards the sea, they contemplate the landscape, letting us, external observers, perceive its grandiose beauty.

The Friar with the snuffbox is a medium-sized canvas present in the collection of the Capuchin Museum since its opening.

Among the works of the Capuchin Museum this Friar with a snuffbox is a classic image of the long-bearded Capuchin friar, alone in his room, sitting on a wooden stool near a brazier, closed in his cloak. A representation that pushes us to search for the uses of the Capuchin life which, from the very beginning, was austere and simple and which allowed small concessions such as tobacco.

Our Capuchin friar, understood in his thoughts, has in fact between his fingers a pinch of tobacco that was considered to have therapeutic powers and therefore, in measured doses, could be consumed. It is a small painting that could fit into a larger group of works created by Teofilo Patini between the eighth and ninth decade of the nineteenth century, when he came into contact with certain Masonic circles that had also procured him ecclesiastical commissions. However, it seems that his interest in the environment of the convent and the figures of some Capuchin friars, is declined with a certain criticism of that world.

What is certain, however, is that Teofilo Patini expresses himself with the symbolist language of the end of the century to describe the realism of his works.

The St. Francis of Assisi in ecstasy by Ortensio Crespi is an important example of Lombard seventeenth-century painting. The canvas, initially attributed to Cerano (Giovanni Battista Crespi) was subsequently traced back to his younger brother, Ortensio Crespi, for the more independent and original style, generally characterized by material preciousness and a marked naturalistic sensitivity, of Nordic origin.

With a loose and experienced workmanship and in the fluid, cold and pearly color scheme, the saint of Assisi is depicted in prayer with hands joined and fingers intertwined, kneeling near a book (the Gospel, but also an image of the Rule of the order of Friars Minor) , leaning against a skull. The figure of the Saint in ecstatic prayer is immersed in a landscape with Nordic characters that intends to evoke the Casentino forests, in particular the Monte della Verna where St. Francis loved to retire in prayer. 

Saint Francis is dressed in a rough Capuchin-style habit (one piece with the hood, and the obvious patches). The particular datum of the nail coming out of the back of the Saint's right hand takes up in a realistic way the description of the impression of the stigmata given by his biographers.

The skull, anachronistic for St. Francis but responding to the spirituality of the seventeenth century, is one of the most widespread iconographic attributes of the penitent saints. It indicates the transience of earthly things and the importance of striving for eternal values.

The Annunciation composed of the two canvases of the announcing Angel and the announced Madonna are one of the most interesting acquisitions of the Capuchin Museum. Entered into the museum's layout in 2017, they come from the current convent of the Capuchin Friars Minor of Brescia, which arrived there from their original location: the church of the second Capuchin convent in Brescia, dedicated to Saints Peter and Marcellin. The two canvases were part of the decorative apparatus of the church consecrated in 1601 and completed in 1614. Some of the most important local painters had contributed to the decoration; Jacopo Palma is among these artists, and he is responsible for several works including, in fact, an Annunciation composed of two canvases placed on the partition of the choir on the sides of the altarpiece.

There are no doubts for the attribution as well as for the signature, […] COBVS PALMA. P., - affixed to the lower left in the canvas of the Madonna Annunciata-, also from some typical stylistic and technical features that distinguished his workshop. Among these, the use of a diagonal canvas, visible to the naked eye in various points (the incarnates in the hands of the Virgin or in the face of the Angel) or the use of particular pigments such as lapis lazuli with which many have been painted parts of blue.

The subject of the Annunciation is one of the most visited. It is with the large paintings (Scuola Grande di San Teodoro in Venice) that the two canvases have stylistic data in common. On the other hand, a certain compositional proximity, as regards the figure of the angel alone, is found in later works such as the Venetian Annunciation of S. Maria dei Derelitti of around 1615, and even more with the altarpiece of the cathedral of Salò ( Brescia) of 1628: similar is the posture of the angel who similarly crosses the advancing leg and holds the flowered lily branch with his left hand.

Precisely for the angel, a clear reference can be found in a drawing kept at the Correr Museum in Venice: characterized by precious shoes with gold trimmings and cherub head, by the dress with a wide band on the chest, by the brooch that closes the slit of the robes. . The gesture of blessing (translation of the angel's greeting to Mary) makes him a figure of extreme delicacy, combined with a sweet expression rendered with a slight smile with lowered eyes.

In the same sheet there are two studies for the announcing Angel and two tests for the Virgin Mary. The face of the Virgin derives from the same cartoon with which the Madonna of the altarpiece was made already in the Capuchin church of Gargnano. The counterpart to the altarpiece which today is kept in external storage at the church of San Marco in Milan (which arrived in the Napoleonic era as a requisition for the nascent Brera art gallery) is very interesting.

The Annunciation composed of the two canvases of the announcing Angel and the announced Madonna are one of the most interesting acquisitions of the Capuchin Museum. Entered into the museum's layout in 2017, they come from the current convent of the Capuchin Friars Minor of Brescia, which arrived there from their original location: the church of the second Capuchin convent in Brescia, dedicated to Saints Peter and Marcellin. The two canvases were part of the decorative apparatus of the church consecrated in 1601 and completed in 1614. Some of the most important local painters had contributed to the decoration; Jacopo Palma is among these artists, and he is responsible for several works including, in fact, an Annunciation composed of two canvases placed on the partition of the choir on the sides of the altarpiece.

There are no doubts for the attribution as well as for the signature, […] COBVS PALMA. P., -apposited at the bottom left in the canvas of the Madonna Annunciata-, also by some typical stylistic and technical features that distinguished his workshop. Among these, the use of a diagonal canvas, visible to the naked eye in various points (the incarnates in the hands of the Virgin or in the face of the Angel) or the use of particular pigments such as lapis lazuli with which many have been painted parts of blue.

The subject of the Annunciation is one of the most visited. It is with the large paintings (Scuola Grande di San Teodoro in Venice) that the two canvases have stylistic data in common. On the other hand, a certain compositional proximity, as regards the figure of the angel alone, is found in later works such as the Venetian Annunciation of S. Maria dei Derelitti of around 1615, and even more with the altarpiece of the cathedral of Salò ( Brescia) of 1628: similar is the posture of the angel who similarly crosses the advancing leg and holds the flowered lily branch with his left hand.

Precisely for the angel, a clear reference can be found in a drawing kept at the Correr Museum in Venice: characterized by precious shoes with gold trimmings and cherub head, by the dress with a wide band on the chest, by the brooch that closes the slit of the robes. . The gesture of blessing (translation of the angel's greeting to Mary) makes him a figure of extreme delicacy, combined with a sweet expression rendered with a slight smile with lowered eyes.

In the same sheet there are two studies for the announcing Angel and two tests for the Virgin Mary. The face of the Virgin derives from the same cartoon with which the Madonna of the altarpiece was made already in the Capuchin church of Gargnano. The counterpart to the altarpiece which today is kept in external storage at the church of San Marco in Milan (which arrived in the Napoleonic era as a requisition for the nascent Brera art gallery) is very interesting.

Ugo Gheduzzi consecrates himself in the Italian artistic heritage by participating in the international exhibition in Rome (1883, Dintorni di Belluno), at the Milan Triennale (1894, The return from work), at the Rassegna di Bologna (1888, Campagna Bolognese, bought by King Umberto I for the royal collections) and winning the gold medal with a painting at the Palermo Exposition (1888, Pietra di paragone).

Subsequently the artist elects as his only hero the figure of the peasant, esteemed in the guise of the authentic savior from the corruption of the contemporary world, emblem of the escape from the inhuman condition of city life and L'aratura is a magnificent example of this.

In the painting, the author does not distract from respect for the hard and daily toil of working in the fields and feels a sort of modest fear that prevents him from grasping people's features. The dense brushstroke, the enameled color, the violent diagonal that dramatically separates the shadow and the light in the foreground, and the geometric shapes of the trees and fields in the background, catch the eye of the spectator and lead him towards the distant horizon.

The canvas in which there is Saint Clare of Assisi kidnapped by the vision of Saint Francis was created by Giuseppe Nuvolone around 1660 and comes from the convent of Cremona.

The artist depicts an episode that occurred in 1240 according to what is remembered by the Franciscan Sources (FF 3201-3202). The Saracen troops sent by Frederick II were about to enter Assisi and were already at the monastery of San Damiano where Chiara lived with her sisters. At this point Chiara, already in poor health, asked to be brought before the Saracens to face them. His only weapon: the Eucharist kept in a silver and ivory capsule; at his sight the Saracens fled and Assisi was saved. In support of this courageous action, Clare had a vision of St. Francis (who died in 1226).

The composition is bare and severe. The altar, in its pure geometry, is the only perspective form. The saint is kneeling on the steps leading to the table and the image of the beloved Francis takes shape in a light cloud placed on the altar fabric (with her hand she almost touches Clare's veil). It is a supernatural and at the same time intimate dialogue in the affections.

Modulated with anxious sensitivity, the brown, gray and amber shades evoke the cloistered silence and make the spiritual concentration of the apparition tangible. The luminescence of the veil of the saint and the tablecloth on the altar shine on the canvas. The elegant chromatic effects also shine, in the precious goldsmith object, which tradition has made it become a monstrance. It is impossible that Chiara used it to drive out the Saracens since the object was born in the 15th century.

With this work, Giuseppe Nuvolone confirms the close relationships of trust between the Nuvolone family and the Capuchin friars, relationships already widely interwoven by his elder brother Carlo Francesco.

The print with the view of the Convent of Porta Orientale is very important for the Capuchin Museum for the reconstruction, at least through the image of a lost place. The Capuchin friars arrived in Lombardy in 1535 and in Milan the first settlement was in the Ducal Chapel of San Giovanni alla Vedra (or Vipera). In 1542 they moved to the convent of San Vittore all'Olmo in Porta Vercellina and just outside the city walls.

About fifty years later, thanks to the contribution of the "Rulers" of the city government, the Capuchin friars bought a land on which, in 1592, they began to build another convent and church that will be dedicated to the Conception of the Immaculate Virgin Mary starting from 1599 The new convent soon became the main one in the Milanese province.

The church, according to the description that Carlo Torre gives in 1714 in Portrait of Milan, had a painting by Cerano on the facade. Unlike the traditional Capuchin indications, the church was large and spacious, however it had a single nave and two chapels on each side, protected by tall wooden gates of Capuchin manufacture. A wooden partition, also of Capuchin tradition, separated the main altar from the choir of the friars. The altarpieces were all the work of the major artists working in Milan at the time: Camillo Procaccini, Carlo Francesco Nuvolone and again Cerano.

The waves of suppressions addressed to religious orders also hit the Capuchin friars and the complex was definitively suppressed and demolished in 1810.

The image of the facade of the church of the Immaculate Conception, a few months before the suppression, appears exaggeratedly impressive. In fact, the print reproduces the ephemeral façade the church was endowed with on the occasion of the three days of celebrations for the beatification of Fra Crispino da Viterbo. However, this lithography is almost the only iconographic document of the facade of the church of the Immaculate Conception (another relief of the seventeenth-century facade remains, of disputed reliability).

The Madonna del Lazzaretto is one of the masterpieces of the Capuchin Museum: in itself it presents evident elements of art and faith.
Produced by the Florentine workshop of Antonio Rossellino, the circumstances of her arrival in Milan are unknown, but it appears that it was placed under one of the arcades of the hospital to be venerated by the sick. In fact, it seems that it was already in the hospital when the use of this place for the isolation of contagious patients ceased. At this time (after 1633) it was donated to the Capuchin friars of the Convent of Porta Orientale as thanks for the important assistance service carried out inside the hospital.
Subsequently, with the suppression and then the demolition of the convent of Porta Orientale (1810), the tile was acquired by private citizens who were its custodians for about a century. It was therefore in the 1920s that the Capuchin friars of the new convent in Viale Piave received this Madonna and Child as a gift, which they placed in the church choir. Following some adaptations of the choir and presbytery area, the panel with the Madonna del lazzaretto (so called due to its ancient provenance) was transferred first to the convent and then to the deposit of the Capuchin Museum.

In 2007 it underwent a delicate restoration which brought to light the original pictorial film with the decoration rich in gold in many of its parts. The Child is dressed in a green tunic and in his plump hands clumsily holds a goldfinch that refers to the Passion, just as the red coral jewels adorn the neck and left wrist refer to the passion.
The Madonna wears a finely decorated red dress and what is striking is the suffering and at the same time almost detached look at him, with whom she looks at the son she holds beside her. He knows the destiny he will live.