ART MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

History, art and crafts
The collections present a wide range of works and objects: paintings, sculptures, musical instruments, ceramic, glass, arms, decorated papers, architectural terracotta, weights and measures, in large part from private collections. Of outstanding interest: the collection of textiles, which ranges from the 12th-19th century, donated by Count Luigi Alberto Gandini; the Galleria Campori with paintings by Lana, Stringa, Ceruti, Crespi and Cerano; and the Sernicoli collection with works by Giovanni da Modena, Elisabetta Sirani, Guercino, Donato Creti e Ubaldo Gandolfi.
Modenese art is represented by Begarelli’s Madonna di Piazza, by fragments of a 13th-14th century fresco from the cathedral, by sculptures
and liturgical furnishings from the 12th-17th century, and works of art by Modenese painters of the 15th-18th century. The 19th and 20th century
figurative tradition, almost absent in the Museum due to space, is on display in the town Hall of Piazza Grande, with works by Malatesta,
Muzzioli, Cappelli, Cavazza, Bellei, Valli.

GRAZIOSI COLLECTION
The Giuseppe Graziosi Collection consists of works in the plaster cast gallery instituted in 1984, following the acquisition of a sizeable collection of the artists’ sculptures, paintings, engravings and drawings, donated by his children, Paolo Graziosi and Rosetta Graziosi Vespignani. Originally placed in the former “San Paolo” girl’s boarding school, in 1994 the gallery was moved to the current location on the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Musei and may be visited upon request during the operating hours of the Civic Museums.
The group of about seventy sculptures is made up of rough sketches in terracotta, original plaster casts and replicas, while the more than two hundred papers that comprise the graphic portion include drawings, etchings, aquatints and lithography.
There are about a dozen paintings, a few of which, due to their size, are housed in the boardrooms of the Palazzo Comunale.
During the ‘90s, the collection increased with the Museum’s purchase of several bronze statuettes and the complete series of the Via Crucis engravings; Graziosi’s heirs also generously donated the artist’s photographical archive (currently housed at the Photography Foundation of Modena), which he used in his work and which includes more than 2000 negatives.