A painting by the Maetro della tela jeans Joins a Museum in Ticino

16/4/26 Acquisition - Rancate (Mendrisio), Pinacoteca cantonale Giovanni Züst - It is an unforgettable painting that has recently entered a little-known museum, yet one with rich collections: the Beggar Woman with Two Children (ill. 1) was part of the small group revealed by the Canesso gallery in autumn 2010 during its exhibition “Il Maestro della tela jeans” (see the article), which brought renewed attention to this original yet still anonymous artist, active in Lombardy in the second half of the 17th century. Although the Pinacoteca cantonale Giovanni Züst is not Switzerland’s most famous institution, it nevertheless provides a perfect setting for this magnificent painting, which finds its natural place alongside the Caravaggesque masterpieces of Giovanni Serodine, the great painter from Ticino, including his Saint Peter in Prison.

We had already discussed its acquisition policy more than twenty years ago (see the news item of 17/12/04), which benefits from the generosity of the Dr. Joseph Scholz Foundation of Zurich, which on this occasion turned away from northern Switzerland by offering this painting. One might have imagined the Beggar Woman with Two Children entering a major international museum or the prestigious Kunsthaus in Zurich, yet it is ultimately more understandable to see it join the pinacoteca in Rancate, located south of Lugano and only a few kilometres from the Italian border. This young museum, opened to the public in 1967 following the donation of the collection assembled by the entrepreneur Giovanni Züst, is currently hosting [1] an exhibition entitled “Art from the 14th to the 19th Century in Public Collections of Ticino,” within which this newly acquired work has easily found its place. It had been seen again on the Canesso gallery stand at TEFAF Maastricht in March 2025, but from now on, in order to admire it, one will have to travel to this modest yet rich museum, which will devote its autumn exhibition to Giuseppe Antonio Petrini, the other artist from Ticino who also had to wait until the mid-20th century to be rediscovered. One can only hope that the Musée du Louvre will lend its superb The Sleep of Saint Peter, which had been donated in 1991 by the Société des Amis du Louvre.

How one would have liked to see a single painting by the Maestro della tela jeans enter the Louvre; if one must unfortunately abandon (one hopes only temporarily) such a prospect, one must once again salute the essential role of the Canesso gallery and its work in art history — its exhibitions and their catalogues remain essential references [2]. We have naturally drawn on the catalogue from autumn 2010 and above all on the online entry for the Beggar Woman with Two Children, to which we refer our readers rather than repeating its essential elements here. It should nevertheless be specified that it is from this composition that the artist derives his conventional name, and that its early provenance has even recently been clarified [3]: the painting was kept — from at least 1692 — at the Villa Airoldi in Albiate, Lombardy, and did not leave it until the end of the 20th century. It subsequently passed through the hands of Cesare Lampronti and then Luigi Koelliker, and had belonged since 2009 to the Canesso gallery, which was still present in Lugano, in Ticino. This second Swiss location closed in 2021, when the gallery transferred it to Milan.