Description
The Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano is an apartment in Milan, on Via Jan, where a couple of collectors lived all their lives among the masterpieces of 20th-century Italian art. Boccioni, de Chirico, Carrà, Sironi, De Pisis and Fontana are all here, hung as in a real home, and the visit is a plunge into a century of art.
The building was constructed between 1929 and 1931 to a design by Piero Portaluppi, the same architect as Villa Necchi Campiglio. Outside, the "corner" shape stands out; inside, the common areas have wide windows and Art Deco railings.
The rooms hold a selection of more than two hundred paintings. Don't miss the Novecento Italiano room, with Funi, Marussig, Tozzi, Carrà and Casorati, and the canvases of the Futurists and the Metaphysical painters, from Boccioni to de Chirico. Behind every artist you sense a hand that chose, bought and hung with care.
There is none of the solemn air of a museum: the works hang in the rooms and are seen up close, as the owners saw them. On the ground floor, Marieda's former ceramics school hosts temporary exhibitions.
He, Antonio Boschi, was an engineer from Novara who worked at Pirelli and had commanded airships in the Great War. She, Marieda Di Stefano, came from a family in the Marche, spent time in art studios and had a passion for ceramics.
Around 1930 they began buying works methodically, helped at first by her father, who left a substantial core of them on his death. They never stopped: in the end there were 1,817 works, from the 1910s to the 1960s.
The collection was donated to the City of Milan but, after the couple were gone, it risked being scattered. It took the commitment of Philippe Daverio, then the city's culture councillor, to settle the dispute with the heirs. Since 2003 a selection has been back in the home where it was so loved.
The building was constructed between 1929 and 1931 to a design by Piero Portaluppi, the same architect as Villa Necchi Campiglio. Outside, the "corner" shape stands out; inside, the common areas have wide windows and Art Deco railings.
The rooms hold a selection of more than two hundred paintings. Don't miss the Novecento Italiano room, with Funi, Marussig, Tozzi, Carrà and Casorati, and the canvases of the Futurists and the Metaphysical painters, from Boccioni to de Chirico. Behind every artist you sense a hand that chose, bought and hung with care.
There is none of the solemn air of a museum: the works hang in the rooms and are seen up close, as the owners saw them. On the ground floor, Marieda's former ceramics school hosts temporary exhibitions.
He, Antonio Boschi, was an engineer from Novara who worked at Pirelli and had commanded airships in the Great War. She, Marieda Di Stefano, came from a family in the Marche, spent time in art studios and had a passion for ceramics.
Around 1930 they began buying works methodically, helped at first by her father, who left a substantial core of them on his death. They never stopped: in the end there were 1,817 works, from the 1910s to the 1960s.
The collection was donated to the City of Milan but, after the couple were gone, it risked being scattered. It took the commitment of Philippe Daverio, then the city's culture councillor, to settle the dispute with the heirs. Since 2003 a selection has been back in the home where it was so loved.