contessanally: October 2019

Photograph and copyright Manfredi Bellati

Venice – Ca' Rezzonico Museo del Settecento Veneziano

The Venice International Foundation

Annual Fundraising Gala Dinner

Album Cicognara Restauration – Premio Cotisso

The annual dinner of the members of The Venice International Foundation was held this year in the majestic ballroom of Ca' Rezzonico Museo del Settecento Veneziano on the Canal Grande. The gala dinner celebrated the ongoing project of the restoration of the Album Cicognara, housed in the Museo Correr and the assignment of the 2019 Cotisso Award, which was given this year to the Rubelli Dynasty, the Venetian family of fine fabric manufacturers known throughout the world.

Alberto Craievich - director - Ca' Rezzonico Museo del Settecento Veneziano - director - Drawings and Prints Cabinet at Museo Correr

Franca Coin – president – The Venice International Foundation – president – Friends of Venice, Italy, Inc.

http://www.venicefoundation.org/ http://friendsofvenice.us/

https://correr.visitmuve.it/en/home/ https://correr.visitmuve.it/en/home/

2019 - Cotisso Award

Rubelli Dynasty

The highlight of the evening was the 2019 Cotisso Award ceremony. This year’s award didn’t go to a single person but to an entire dynasty: that of the Rubelli a family of fine fabric producers known throughout the world who have masterfully infused all the Venetian culture and tradition into their highly artistic fabrics.

Katia Da Ros, Franca Coin, Luca Bombassei, Guido Venturini,

Lisa Paola, Alessandro, Lorenzo, Andrea and Sandrina Favaretto Rubelli, Helene de Prittwitz Zaleski and Giacomo Cavallucci

Album Cicognara

Fundraising Project

Once again, the fundraising dinner was for the ongoing restoration project, the Album Cicognara, a collection of 81 drawings made by the greatest Neoclassical artists, both Italian and foreign - including Francesco Hayez, Giuseppe Bossi, Antonio Canova - donated as a sign of esteem and friendship to Leopoldo Cicognara, great patron, cultured historian, brilliant art critic, as well as President of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice from 1808 to 1826 and "cultural operator" ante litteram for the protection, promotion and production of the arts. Friends of Venice Italy Inc. the American sister of the Venice Foundation also contributed to the fundraising project. The restoration started a few months ago and Alberto Craievich - in the dual role of director of Ca' Rezzonico and responsible for the Drawings and Prints Cabinet of the Museo Correr, where the Album is kept, updated guests on the status and progress of the works that should be concluded between spring and summer of 2020. To better ensure the conservation of the individual sheets, the Album will be "dissolved" and the hope of the Venice Foundation members is to be able to admire them all together in an exhibition dedicated to this important collection, which well represents the expressions of all the artistic schools of the Nineteenth century.

Francesco Hayez - Portrait - Leopoldo Cicognara - foglio 73

Franca Coin, Cesare and Liliana Rimini

Guido Venturini, Isa and Pierino Persico and Giulia Venturini

Renato Pellicioli, Katia Da Ros and Marco Cappelletto

Valentina Borgogni and Giacomo Cavallucci

Morella Morelli, Luca Bombassei, Aurelio Latella, Giordana Naccari

Fabio Pacifico

Alberto Craievich

director - Ca' Rezzonico Museo del Settecento Veneziano

director - Drawings and Prints Cabinet at Museo Correr

Giulio Manieri Elia, Alessandra Mancino and Paolo De Benedictis

Andrea and Sandrina Favaretto Rubelli

Lorenzo Favaretto Rubelli

Album Cicognara - Museo Correr - cover

Manfredi Bellati and Tonci Foscari

Paola and Andrea Tomat

Guido and Paola Pennisi

Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Catherine Orentreich and Elizabeth Royer Grimblat

L’Aperitivo

Jean-Francois and Odile Saglio

Giuliana Dall’Ora

Felice Casson and Milva Andriolli

Ferigo and Claudia Foscari

Roberta Brunetti and Marco Cappelletto

Angelica Fontana and Alessandra Mancino

Paolo and Maura Costa

Antonio Canova - Studio di Panneggio - foglio 34

Daniela Ferretti

Lara Caballini di Sassoferrato and Carmen Verderosa

Concetta Varalla and Daniele Zanichelli

Manuela Pivato and Andrea Giacobino

Francesco Hayez – Selfportrait – foglio 63

The Ballroom

Ca' Rezzonico Museo del Settecento Veneziano

The majestic ballroom was created in 1750 by the architect Giorgio Massari, with frescos by Giambattista Crosato and architectural trompe-l’oeil by Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna. The room is a heraldic and allegorical exaltation of the owners. The visitor is transported into a magical, fairytale atmosphere within the walls of a family home. The only pieces of the original furnishings remaining are the two majestic wooden chandeliers with floral patterns in gilded metal. Along the walls we find lavish ornamental furnishings in ebony and boxwood by Andrea Brustolon, one of the greatest Baroque sculptors of wood.

https://carezzonico.visitmuve.it/en/il-museo/percorsi-e-collezioni/first-floor-2/ballroom/

“In our fascinating and extraordinary adventures linked to Antonio Canova - started in Venice in 2012 at the Museo Correr and then continued through the years at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, the Gypsotheca and Museo Antonio Canova in Possagno up to the most recent exhibitions in Venice and in New York - we have learned to appreciate not only the great Neoclassical master but also the whole world that evolves around him. A world made up of his important clients, his international relations, his family, the smallest circle of friends. Among these, Leopoldo Cicognara, an enlightened figure, a patron and promoter of the arts, who played a fundamental role, and at the same time was a sincere and fraternal friend to Canova, so much so that it was in his arms that the sublime master died in 1822 behind Piazza San Marco.”
Franca Coin

Alberto Craievich - director - Ca' Rezzonico Museo del Settecento Veneziano - director - Drawings and Prints Cabinet at Museo Correr

Franca Coin – president – The Venice International Foundation president – Friends of Venice, Italy, Inc.