A pair of Apostles by the painter Marcantonio Ghislina, discovered on the antique market in 2006 and acquired through a public subscription in view of the opening of the Museum, is on display here.
Ghislina (1676-1756), a late baroque painter with a workshop still run by his family, was the main local artist of the first half of the eighteenth century, very active in Casalmaggiore, in Cremona and in the territory of the diocese of Cremona, almost exclusively for ecclesiastical commissions of paintings of sacred subjects.
Saint Peter and Saint Philip were originally part of a series of 12 Apostles, datable to the end of the 1730s and perhaps made for the Church of Sospiro, but then acquired by the Parish Church of Castelleone, where five of them are still conserved, while the remaining canvases in the series are now dispersed.
In tune with the major Cremonese works of the artist, these paintings are ascribable to the full maturity of the artist and characterized by a search for pathos and monumentality, by emphatic gestures, by the wide unfolding of the drapery.
Other works by Ghislina are exhibited along the staircase, one of them coming from the disused Old Hospital of Casalmaggiore, in whose Church a cycle of seven large canvases with Old Testament subjects and a series of frescoes are still preserved. Some frescoes are also in the monastic church of Santa Chiara.
Acquired through a public subscription in 2006
