The Civic Museum of Asolo presents a new exhibition room entirely dedicated to Eleonora Duse. The new display, which features a strong multimedia component, aims to bring the objects of the Duse collection to life: dresses, objects, photographs, and books are fragments of the artist’s inner world, speaking about her and her life, lived in a delicate balance between personal and professional dimensions.

Included in the celebrations for the centenary of the great artist’s death, which will take place throughout 2024, the new exhibition room is a project born from the collaboration between the Municipality of Asolo and the Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape Superintendence for the Metropolitan Area of Venice and the provinces of Belluno, Padua, and Treviso, funded by the Ministry of Culture.

I love Asolo because it is beautiful and quiet, a village of lace and poetry, because it is not far from Venice, which I adore, because good friends live there whom I love, because it is located between the Grappa and the Montello... This will be the haven for my final old age, and here I wish to be buried. Remember this, and if ever, say it…

Thus, Eleonora Duse expressed to Marco Praga in 1919 her affection for Asolo. Following her sudden death in Pittsburgh on April 21, 1924, her friend worked to ensure that the great artist would be buried in Asolo, at the small cemetery of Sant’Anna.

Her daughter, Enrichetta Angelica Marchetti Bullough, donated part of her mother’s belongings to the Italian State on the condition that they remain in the custody of the Asolo Museum. This marked the beginning of the Duse Collection, composed of fabrics, paintings, portraits, furniture, books, photographs, documents, and family keepsakes, preserved at the Civic Museum of Asolo.

As part of the celebrations for the centenary of Eleonora Duse’s death, the Civic Museum of Asolo will open a new exhibition room entirely dedicated to the great artist on October 7, 2023. Una casa per Eleonora aims to broaden the collection’s accessibility and ensure its preservation, incorporating it into a new narrative that is rich, accessible, and enhanced through the use of new methodologies and technologies, guided by the most modern museological and museographic approaches.

The project has been realized thanks to a collaboration between the Municipality of Asolo and the Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape Superintendence for the Metropolitan Area of Venice and the provinces of Belluno, Padua, and Treviso, funded by the Ministry of Culture through the 2021 Culture Fund.

In January 1891, Eleonora Duse wrote these lively words to the Veronese painter Vincenzo De’ Stefani, inviting him to join her in Milan to complete the portrait the artist had planned to create.

The sketch on wood, which remains as evidence of this happy encounter, shows a sensitive interpretation of the actress’s face, who, during those years, was beginning to make her mark on international stages. The painting, after a single public appearance at the 1912 Venice Biennale, was no longer exhibited and remained virtually unknown until recent years.

From April 21, 2024, to March 2, 2025, on the occasion of the centenary of Eleonora Duse’s death, the exhibition room Una casa per Eleonora at the Civic Museum of Asolo will allow visitors to rediscover a forgotten portrait of Eleonora and learn about an artist who remains too little known.

(Curated by Elena Casotto, Art Historian)