Flowers

Behind Giorgio Morandi's Fiori there is a beautiful story to tell, which begins with the long and overwhelming love between maestro Arturo Toscanini and pianist Ada Colleoni.

The painting had been purchased by Toscanini as a gift to Ada, when the love between them was now over: almost a tribute that the master wanted to pay to that feeling, to sublimate its beauty.

Ada had exhibited it in her home as a reminder of that love. Among the many who had appreciated the beauty of the painting there was also a little girl, Nicoletta Braibanti, who was fascinated by it.

But Nicoletta was no ordinary child: her mother was Maria Teresa Pizzetti, a friend of Ada, and her grandfather Ildebrando Pizzetti, a well-known composer and musicologist. Her mother had therefore decided to buy her painting as a gift to her little girl.

In 2017 the painting was donated to the Monteparma Foundation in compliance with the will of Nicoletta Braibanti, who wanted the painting, after her death, to be kept and exhibited at a museum in Parma.

The flowers, in delicate shades of pink and white, are placed in a rounded vase of which only the mouth can be seen, thus giving great prominence to the composition, which occupies the entire space.

The work enhances Morandi's ability to define objects through color tone variations, highlighted by lights and shadows, without using contour lines.