11 new 19th century works for the Pitti Palace Gallery of Modern Art

Eleven new 19th century works enter the Uffizi Galleries. They range from Luigi Ademollo's highly personal interpretation of Neoclassicism, through Bezzuoli's exuberant Romanticism, to the enthusiasm of the Industrial Revolution (celebrated by Romanelli's statue) and will soon be on display at the Gallery of Modern Art in Pitti Palce.

Following the success of the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Giuseppe Bezzuoli at Palazzo Pitti last year ("Giuseppe Bezzuoli (1784-1855). A great protagonist of Romantic painting", from 29 March to 5 June 2022, 162,659 visitors) the Uffizi collections are now joined by a series of masterpieces by the painter, the greatest representative of Romanticism in Tuscany (and beyond). The Madonna and Sleeping Child, Love Wins the Force and two drawings (Ballerina "vista alla Pergola", Episode of the Flood with Various Studies for Figures) all come from an important private collection of a great scholar of the artist. Added to these is the painting Maria Maddalena tentata dalle bellezze della vita passata (Mary Magdalene Tempted by the Beauties of Past Lives), which emerged from oblivion precisely thanks to the Florentine exhibition and was acquired by a private Spanish collection, the ideal pendant to another Penitent Magdalene by Bezzuoli himself, conserved in the Pinacoteca Foresiana in Portoferraio.

Instead, it was the Italian State itself that bought Ademollo's drawings and Romanelli's sculpture, allocating them to the GAM. After blocking their export, it chose the Galleria di Arte Moderna of Pitti Palace as the most suitable context to receive them, exalting their artistic and expressive value.