The Curators’ Quaderno - The Search for Violante
The Search for Violante in Florence. Issue 5 of The Curators’ Quaderno follows the restoration of three devotional paintings attributed to eighteenth-century painter Violante Siries, at Certosa di Firenze, a vast monastery in Tuscany. Violante’s Reading Madonna, a rare, highly damaged altarpiece is a mysterious commission for a Grand Tour female artist, even of her calibre. Conservators and scholars embark on a multi-faceted search for these paintings’ attributions. They scour the archives and safeguard the paintings’ future in a restoration laboratory in the Santa Croce district, to determine whether these attributions match the painter’s hand. The Curators’ Quaderno is a collection of notebook-style publications, conceived by Calliope Arts, in collaboration with The Florentine and Restoration Conversations, to raise awareness of women’s contributions to the fields of art, science and culture.
The Search for Violante in Florence. Issue 5 of The Curators’ Quaderno follows the restoration of three devotional paintings attributed to eighteenth-century painter Violante Siries, at Certosa di Firenze, a vast monastery in Tuscany. Violante’s Reading Madonna, a rare, highly damaged altarpiece is a mysterious commission for a Grand Tour female artist, even of her calibre. Conservators and scholars embark on a multi-faceted search for these paintings’ attributions. They scour the archives and safeguard the paintings’ future in a restoration laboratory in the Santa Croce district, to determine whether these attributions match the painter’s hand.
The Curators’ Quaderno is a collection of notebook-style publications, conceived by Calliope Arts, in collaboration with The Florentine and Restoration Conversations, to raise awareness of women’s contributions to the fields of art, science and culture.
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“Undisturbed silence has characterised the vast Certosa
di Firenze charterhouse, since its construction in 1341, as
home of the Carthusian monks. The artwork displayed in
this fortress-like structure, made strong by contemplation
not weaponry, could represent lifetimes of labour for a
team of endlessly patient restorers. As part of the project
‘Accademia Women: Violante’, conservators Marina Vincenti
and Elizabeth Wicks spent one year with the only woman
in the place – eighteenth-century painter Violante Siriès
– whose Reading Madonna is displayed above the altar,
in what may well be the smallest chapel off the cloister,
adjacent to the prior’s tiny bedroom. Despite its dire need
for restoration, the Cappella del priore is a pastel-hued
Rococo gem and the Siriès altar piece is an ode to daily
work and devotion, but as modern women, we cannot help
but revel in the message between the lines: its protagonist
is a literate woman seeking knowledge, independently.”
Linda Falcone
‘Accademia Women’ coordinator
“Inspired by the leadership of AWA founder Jane Fortune,
Advancing Women Artists foregrounded and restored 70
artworks by women artists in Florence’s museums, in its
13 years of existence. These women’s art spanned four
centuries. Their salvaged paintings or sculptures and
the original research that emerged with each project’s
completion continues to be an important legacy for art
lovers and scholars alike. The AWA Legacy Fund was
created upon the organisation’s closure in 2020, thanks to
support from its Board of Directors. Our partnership with
Syracuse University in Florence and the Accademia delle
Arti del Disegno has focused on three paintings attributed
to Violante Siriès (1709–1783). For all those involved, these
small paintings are like standards of an enduring dream: to
safeguard art by women for posterity.”
Nancy Galliher
Advancing Women Artists
Former president
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