Weekend art shows feature Wurts

(ANSA) - Rome, December 7 - This weekend's art show openings include a display of art collected by 19th-century American diplomat George Washington Wurts, who bequeathed the vast collection he amassed with his wife Henriette Tower to the Italian state; as well as the incomparable etchings and landscapes of Giovanni Piranesi, on display in Turin. In addition, a show in Naples gives a look into Neapolitan artists active in Paris during the years of impressionism. ROME - An Anglo-American collection from the early 1900s goes on display in two locations - Palazzo Venezia and the Sacconi Galleries in the Vittoriano Museum - with the show "Voglia d'Italia: International Collections in Vittoriano's Rome", through March 4. The show features the vast Wurts Collection, whose works were donated to the Italian state by its collectors, the American diplomat George Washington Wurts and his wife Henriette Tower, and which permanently resides in the Palazzo Venezia. This is the first time the collection is being shown as an organized whole, following various studies and restorations of its works. It gives visitors a chance to experience the particular context surrounding a form of art collection that, at the time, was intimately connected with Italy.
    NAPLES - The Italian Galleries at the Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano (also the city headquarters of Intesa Sanpaolo​ Bank) are hosting a show titled "From De Nittis to Gemito: Neapolitans in Paris in the Years of Impressionism" through April 8. The show reconstructs the relationship between the great international capital of world culture that is Paris and the artists who were active in Naples during the second half of the 1800s. It includes the historic paintings of Domenico Morelli and Gioacchino Toma, moving towards artists who painted in a genre that was emerging at the time known as "modern life" theorised by Baudelaire, whose exponents included Neapolitan artists Francesco Netti and Giuseppe Di Nittis, with around 90 works.
    TURIN - The show "Piranesi: The Utopia Factory" goes on display through March 11 in the exhibition spaces of the city's Royal Museums (Musei Reali), with 93 works focusing mainly on the artist's famed series of 18th-century etchings of Rome known as "Vedute di Roma." The Venetian architect depicts both 18th-century rationalism as well as the passion of the pre-Romantic era.