Portrait of Sofia Gervasini

This is the third commission of the painter Giulio Cisari, by the Quadreria Ospedaliera for the portrait of Sofia Gervasini, after two works performed by Umberto Lilloni are rejected. The benefactor, in 1911, still alive, had donated three Milanese houses of her own property, worth about 400,000 lire, to the Ospedale Maggiore, asking for a modest annual income for herself. Before she died, in 1931, she annulled the will in favor of the hospital, assigning heir to the Congregation of Charity (now ASP Golgi-Redaelli), annoyed that in all those years the Ca 'Granda had not provided on its own initiative to adjust the annuity and to commission the portrait. Although belatedly, Umberto Lilloni, founder of the "Chiaristi Milanese", who has a young photo of the benefactor during a holiday in Liguria, between Lavagna and Sestri Levante, is entrusted with the task. Criticized by the family and by the executor, the painting is retouched by the artist according to the indications given by the relatives; this time it is rejected by the Hospital Council. Lilloni declares himself willing to perform a new portrait, but even this has no better luck. For the peace of relatives, this third portrait was commissioned in 1942 to Giulio Cisari, a pupil of Cesare Tallone and Ludovico Pogliaghi, a portraitist at the Savoy court, an engraver and illustrator of books, who represented the benefactor in evening dress and wrapped in a broad mantle, renouncing any psychological setting or characterization, but satisfying the client.