Portrait of Vittore Corda

Vittore Agostino Corda (1856-1931), the son of a large, modest family (he had 18 brothers and sisters), began to work in his father's furniture factory, then he found employment in a timber company, finally he set up on his own, forming a commercial company with a sawmill in the Sondrio province. Despite river floods that create two serious financial disruptions, he succeeds both times to restart and to accumulate a small fortune, of which in the testament the Maggiore Hospital benefits. The portrait of the benefactor is commissioned to Pompeo Borra, who had begun the activity with a collective exhibition at the Milanese Arts Family, then exhibiting at the Venice Biennale. The artist adheres to "Novecento", preferring above all female subjects. The benefactor is represented with his beautiful dog at his feet, with his cigar between the fingers and the hand resting on the table, sitting next to a window from which a volumetrically simple landscape can be seen, essential as the whole composition, with no rhetoric and built with aim to suggest an idea of ​​everyday modesty.