Portrait of Giuseppina Rossi Casartelli

Giuseppina Rossi (1845-1930), widow of Carlo Casartelli, textile entrepreneur, in her will appoint the Ospedale Maggiore as universal heir, asking for her husband, "his poor Carlo", who died in 1917 (Esodo Pratelli executes the portrait), also to be commemorated in the painting. The commission of the portrait of Ms. Rossi is entrusted to Raffaele De Grada who, having a photograph as a model, portrays the benefactor in old age, sitting in front of a porch and dressed as she appears in the picture, with her hands realistically deformed by arthrosis. De Grada, who started his business in Tuscany, then moved to Milan where he came into contact with "Novecento" and the new generation of contemporary artists.