Tanzio da Varallo. Realism, fervour and contemplation of a 17th-century painter
Curated by Marco Bona Castellotti con la collaborazione di un comitato scientifico formato da Paola Astrua, Simonetta Coppa, Giovanna Di Matteo, Filippo Maria Ferro, Francesco Frangi, Carlenrica Spantigati, Richard Townsend, Paolo Venturoli
More than sixty works, some of which never seen before and some recently restored, make up the exhibition Tanzio da Varallo – Realismo, fervore e contemplazione in un pittore del Seicento/ Realism, fervour and contemplation of a 17th-century painter, which is promoted by the Council of Milan, Culture and Museums Department, and by the Lombardy Region, Culture Department, and is held at Palazzo Reale from 5 April to 2 July 2000.
The exhibition stands like a monograph: it gathers forty works on canvas coming from different Italian regions (Piedmont, Lombardy, Abruzzo and Campania) and from the United States, as well as more than twenty drawings from various European collections and a group of polychrome sculptures of full size figures, shaped in terracotta by the artist’s brother Giovanni d’Enrico and then painted by Tanzio himself, that comes from the museum of Varallo Sesia in Piedmont, the mountain town where the brothers were mostly active around 1620 and left their permanent mark in the Sacro Monte Chapels.
In addition the exhibition is a unique occasion in order to discover the frescos left by Tanzio in some Milanese churches, such as Saint Mary of Peace where the visitor can admire a beautiful series of frescos very recently restored by the Cariplo Foundation, and Saint Antony where there are other frescos still awaiting restoration.