Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia is holding a major exhibition in tribute to the entire female universe. The exhibition will be open until June 12, 2022. Women in art from Titian to Boldini is the title of the exhibition, dedicated to the centrality of women in the broad sense of the art of all times.

More than 90 works painted over four centuries, from Tiziano, Guercino and Pitocchetto to Hayez and De Nittis, from Federico Zandomeneghi to Giovanni Boldini, will tell how the greatest Italian artists have drawn inspiration from the female world, immortalising a multitude of timeless figures with magnetic charm.

In painting the subject of women is so fascinating and engaging that artists, especially between the 16th and 19th centuries, explored it from every iconographic perspective, immortalising women in masterpieces that still seduce our gaze. 

Below: Vittorio Matteo Corcos (Livorno, 1859 – Firenze, 1933), Hummingbirds, Private collection.

One of my favourites ones.

For the visitor it is an opportunity to make an exciting journey full of surprises, embellished with unpublished paintings recently discovered in prestigious private collections, works never exhibited before, and close encounters with famous women of the past. 

Below is perhaps the most fascinating one

Between mythical creatures or divinities of everyday life, sophisticated ladies or caring mothers, the exhibition path at Palazzo Martinengo reveals through eight thematic stages—Biblical saints and heroines, Mythology in pink, Portraits of women, Female still life, Maternity, Work, Daily life , Nude and sensuality—a multifaceted cosmos around which art has never stopped gravitating.

A Summer Breeze

Scenes of everyday life

I particularly loved this one:

Among the ruins of Pompeii

And this one that I found particularly intriguing as the frescos that the girl is admiring are found these days still in Pompeii.