A unique experience, discover the secrets of Palazzo Coronini

The neoclassical painter Francesco Caucig, a professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, was the artist from Gorizia who enjoyed the greatest fame among his contemporaries during the 19th century. His importance was well known to Count Guglielmo Coronini Cronberg, who, as early as the 1950s, endeavored to rediscover his long-forgotten personality. For this reason, in 1962, he purchased from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts the thirty drawings that form the core of the exhibition.

Drawing, an exercise that at the time was closely linked to the artistic education promoted by the academies, always occupied a prominent place in Francesco Caucig’s work: studies of nudes and anatomical parts, copies from antiquity and from the great masters of the past, which were obligatory during his training period in Rome, views and landscapes, which are perhaps the most original and spontaneous aspect of his production, the detailed compositions on historical-mythological subjects, preparatory to his large oil paintings.

After more than fifty years of research by Slovenian art historian Ksenija Rozman, who dissected every single aspect of his production, little seemed possible to add to our knowledge of Caucig. However, in reconstructing the artist’s biography and career, the exhibition dwells on a number of important new findings, such as the Visitation altarpiece, lost during the First World War and recovered in 2021, and the long, close friendship with the architect Pietro Nobile, documented by a collection of unpublished letters written by the painter between 1808 and 1818. Rich in news and personal anecdotes, this correspondence brings out Caucig’s human side: his goliardic and irreverent character, but also his sharp and disenchanted gaze on the great historical events he witnessed directly. His own words express professional frustrations and disappointments, recount in dramatic tones the last stages of Napoleon’s parable, and evoke with a touch of irony the balls and sumptuous receptions organized in Vienna during the Congress.

OPENING HOURS

from November 1, 2023
Open:
from Wednesday to Friday from  10.00 am to 1.00 pm
Saturda,  Sanday an holidays from  10.00 am to 1.00 pm; from 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm
Closed: Monday and Tuesday

Closed: 31^th December, 1^st January
Open: 6^th January

ADMISSION PRICES
Exhibition
Regular ticket: € 5,00
Reduced ticket students: € 2,00
Free entry ticket: Child (under 11), disabled

Guided tour supplement: € 3,00
(For group visits only, with a minimum of 10 people. Advance booking is required)

Palazzo Coronini Cronberg and exhibition
Regular ticket: € 10,00
Reduced ticket students: € 8,00