Portrait of Beatrice Fortini Canzi

Beatrice Fortini (1865-1938), wife of Cosmo Canzi, collaborates with him in running the family company of precision balances. Some years after her husband's death, in 1943, she donated to Ospedale Maggiore, on behalf of both 100,000 lire; she also sent her own portrait and that of her spouse, who had Ambrogio Alciati paint them, after visiting the exhibition of the paintings of the Festa del Perdono in 1915, she developed the idea of ​​benefiting the Hospital and “offer thmeselves ”, as a gift for the upcoming anniversary of the silver wedding, two portraits; they had chosen Alciati, one of the most popular artists in the Milan at the time, who made two beautiful paintings. Also in this painting, which is the 'pendant' of Cosmo Canzi's, the dress is dark, the black backdrop, so as to concentrate, in the absence of depicting details, all the attention on the face, from the light complexion and from the sweet expression, in a clever play of chiaroscuro effects, these are not present in the portrait of the husband. The skillful play of sober transparency of the dress is, compared to the male portrait, a concession to femininity.