Anna Maria Faita Porcelli was a benefactor of local Opere Pie who contributed with donations and bequest for the improvement of the poor’s life conditions. For this reason, her portrait belongs to this Institution.
The quality of the painting technique and the research for realism are more refined than other occasional tribute paintings. The noblewoman here is old, she wears jewels that underline her status and she holds a breviary, which alludes to her devotion: it symbolizes a nobility and an introspective nobleness that, perhaps, are juxtaposed with the elegance of her clothing.
She was the one who commissioned the big altarpiece Santi Nicola, Andrea e Francesco da Paola to the painter Ghislina for the Church of the Hospital, which today is exposed along the staircase of the Museum.
Her portrait, as the Leonardo Badalotti and Profeti's (“The Prophets”) ones visible in this hall, is Francesco Chiozzi's work, who is the leading figure of the re-enhancement of the arts in Casalmaggiore during the second half of the eighteenth century and, indeed, funded of a school of ornament in 1769.
Loan from Fondazione Conte Busi onlus - Casalmaggiore
