Portrait of Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi

Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi (1845-1934), graduated in architecture and jurisprudence, excellent draftsman, cultured and eclectic scholar, belonging, with his brother Fausto, to an ancient noble family, he contributes to transforming the Milanese palace they owned into one of the most important examples of neo-Renaissance architecture. Today the palace is home to the Bagatti-Valsecchi Museum, one of the four "Museum Houses" of the Lombard capital, with a vast collection of paintings, objects, weapons, fabrics and sculptures from the 15th / 16th century. A sportsman (cyclist, rider, swimmer), he is generously involved with charitable and welfare organizations. For thirty years he is a member of Ospedale Maggiore visiting commission, founded in 1887; for 60 he is a delegated of the Congregation of Charity. At the age of seventy, he volunteered for the front in World War I with the Italian Red Cross to organize, together with Dr. Baldo Rossi, the field surgical hospitals. After the death of his brother, who survived twenty years, he became even more actively involved in philanthropy. In the last years of his life he became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, of the Conservative Commission of Monuments and Objects of Antiquity and Art, of the Restoration Commission of the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio and of the Lombard Historical Society. The Hospital, after the legacy of 150,000 lire from the heirs, for the creation of a Foundation that deals with poor convalescents, entrusts the commission of the portrait to Augusto Colombo, who executes a picture much appreciated also by the critics, who has it always considered one of the greatest examples of his portraiture. We note the profound correspondence between character and environment, which constitutes a fundamental element for the social framework: the baron is depicted on a loggia of his palace, with the welcoming and hospitable expression that his visitors knew well, as if to invite with the smile and the cordial gesture of the hand the observer to come forward.