Portrait of Teresa Vanoni Viglezio

Teresa Vanoni (1850-1936), from Lugano, belonging to a wealthy Ticino family devoted to philanthropy, having completed her studies, married the Lugano lawyer Pietro Viglezio and dedicated herself to the family and to the 5 children care, for their education the family moved to Milan. At 50 years of age, now free from family commitments, she starts a "second life": professionally she dedicates herself successfully to a managerial activity in the construction and real estate sectors, considerably increasing her assets and, in her spare time, to her beloved philosophical and psychoanalytic readings. In his will she nominates heirs in equal parts to the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan and the Civil Hospital of Lugano. The commission of the portrait is entrusted to the young Orazio Orazi, surely influenced by expressionism, who performs a work that we could define as "essential": he does not give in to details, in the setting, in the representation of the figure of the benefactor represented with simple and full volumes , focusing on the bright, intelligent and expressive face.