Portrait of Nelda Carcano

Nelda Carcano (1882-1941), daughter of Alessandro Carcano, owner with Vittorio De Grubicy of the Art Gallery "De Grubicy & C.", in Foro Bonaparte, which dealt with the works of artists of the caliber of Segantini, Previati and Longoni, of which the two partners were agents, and of the luxurious stationery shop "Raimondi e Carcano" in Corso Vittorio Emanuele. He received an excellent education, even musical (he is a good pianist) and he led a comfortable life up to his youth; the long illness of his father, and then his death, the return of his brother Ettore mutilated and unfit for work from the First World War cause an abrupt change of course: to keep himself and his family she worked as an accountant in a firm. She does not marry and live in the company of her beloved pets. However she manages to put aside a decent patrimony, about 240,000 lire, of which the Ospedale Maggiore Hospital is universal heir. The commemorative portrait was first commissioned to Federico Gariboldi, then, as an indication of the brother of the benefactor, to Umberto Brambilla, who however carried out a picture judged by the Artistic Commission "too sad and meticulous". There are numerous corrections requested of the artist, who concentrates on describing the environment and the dress with exaggerated precision, sacrificing the characterization of the character to this excess of detail and creating a work with an oleographic flavor.