The Palazzo Pretorio Museum in Prato is about to welcome to its rooms two new works
which will become part of its permanent collection: Venere Maria – Nudo color seppia by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Victoire de Samothrace by Yves Klein, both belonging to Carlo Palli, the collector from Prato who has donated them to the city’s museum. Approved by the city council, the donation has now been made official by the mayor’s office. The works will be placed on display on the third floor of the Palazzo Pretorio Museum in Piazza del Comune (the square in front of the city hall) in the section dedicated to the 19th and 20th centuries, next to Lorenzo Bartolini’s and Jacques Lipchitz’s sculptures. The artistic link between the two works and the museum is not new: Venere Maria – Nudo color seppia and Victoire de Samothrace were already part of its 2015 exhibition Synchronicity.

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work is a silkscreen print on mirror-polished stainless steel representing Maria Pioppi, the wife of the founder of Cittadellarte: “Curator Stefano Pezzato,” said Palli to the Tuscan press, “compared this work to masterpieces like Titian’s Venus of Urbino, Goya’s Maya desnuda and Manet’s Olympia, suggesting the idea that as previous centuries had their Venuses, the 20th century had Pistoletto’s. I bought this work in 1974 and it has been around the world since, but kept in my home. I do believe that Venus Maria deserves to be admired by the public though,” added the collector, “and I have therefore decided to donate it to the city’s museum, to share its beauty”.

Michelangelo Pistoletto,
Biella, 1933
Venere Maria – Nudo color seppia
1962/1974
Donation by Sandra and Carlo Palli
Silkscreen on mirror-polished stainless steel

Michelangelo Pistoletto commented to us about the donation: “I am glad that my work Venere Maria can reflect the Palazzo Pretorio Museum in Prato together with all the visitors that walking past the painting will become part of it. This is thanks to the generosity of Carlo Palli, an enlightened collector. Maria is my Venus. In the painting, I fixed a moment of my life that, following the dynamics of time, goes through the present including us in it”.

Yves Klein
Nice, 1928 – Paris, 1962
Victoire de Samothrace
1962/1974
Donation by Sandra and Carlo Palli
Chalk, blue dry pigment and synthetic resin, fixed on a stone base

Yves Klein’s Venus of Samothrace is one of three works he created in the ’60s and painted with his IKB – International Klein Blue, a hue mixed by Klein himself using monochrome blue pigment, which has become iconic to the artist: it evokes contemplation and the infinite. “I want to thank Carlo Palli for his generosity on behalf of the whole city,” said Simone Mangani, assessor for culture of the City of Prato, “these works are contributing to a further enrichment of the museum’s collection, and allow us to pay our homage to two well-appreciated contemporary artists”.

Cover image: Palazzo Pretorio Museum in Prato (credits: Wikipedia).