The Rediscovery of a Master

The exhibition dedicated to Achille d’Orsi will open at the museum spaces of the Fondazione "Circolo Artistico Politecnico" ETS, located within the historic Palazzo Zapata (Piazza Trieste e Trento, 48). The event is organized by MUSAP – Fondazione di Partecipazione, an institution dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Neapolitan artistic memory.

The exhibition itinerary focuses on d'Orsi's capacity to convey, without compromise, the daily life and social tensions of post-unification Naples. The exhibition brings together well-known sculptures, masterpieces recognized by critics, and recently traced artifacts. The highlight is represented by a series of absolute unreleased works emerged from new research, which significantly expand the artist's catalogue.

This selection offers the most complete and up-to-date view of d'Orsi's work.

The Master: Achille d'Orsi (1845-1929)

Achille d'Orsi established himself as a protagonist of Italian Realism. His training quickly led him to adopt a direct and rigorous observation of reality, detaching himself from the academic canons of his time.

D'Orsi's art is social documentation. He focused his attention on the common people and marginal figures, portraying their toil and dignity with raw honesty. Works such as I Parassiti (The Parasites) earned him immediate and vast recognition, consolidating his prestige in major national and European exhibitions.

D'Orsi excelled at combining the monumental language, evident in public works like the statues of Alfonso d'Aragona (Palazzo Reale) and Umberto I (via Nazario Sauro), with a profound expressive truth focused on the individual. His sculpture constitutes an essential reference for the cultural history of the South of Italy.

Between Truth and Monumentality

Visitors will be able to analyze the dialogue between d'Orsi's social vocation and his technical ability. The works on display illustrate:

• Social Sculpture: The focus on the human and popular reality of Naples.

• The Monument and the Portrait: The synthesis between celebratory grandeur and psychological characterization.

• The Unreleased Works (Inediti): New discoveries that offer fresh material for criticism and enrich the knowledge of the artist.

With this initiative, MUSAP reaffirms its commitment to enhancing Neapolitan artistic memory, offering the city a unique opportunity to engage with a fundamental season in its history.

MUSAP – Museo Artistico Politecnico is the new multi-purpose and smart museum vehicle, created by the Foundation "Circolo Artistico Politecnico" of Naples for the conservation, implementation and enhancement of the Artistic and Cultural Heritage donated to the Territory by the Founding Members of the more than one hundred year old Institution.

MUSAP it is the place of testimony of the passion, availability, commitment and constancy towards the art and culture of the Territory on the part of the members of the noble and over one hundred year old institution. Located in the seventeenth-century Palazzo Zapata, in Naples, Piazza Trieste e Trento 48, in the "Quadrilateral of Wonders", from Castel Nuovo, from the Galleria Umberto I, from the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola, from Castel dell'Ovo and from Palazzo Reale and adjacent Teatro San Carlo, offers citizens, tourists, scholars, researchers and enthusiasts its precious multipurpose collection: picture gallery, library, photo library, document archive, period furnishings and instruments. All tastefully arranged in the architectural setting of the time. 600 works, including paintings, sculptures and graphic works; 5500 portraits and photographic images; 6000 ancient and modern volumes, two tens of thousands of archive finds, mostly unpublished, allow us to reconstruct the life of the arts in Naples from the first half of the nineteenth century to today.

The Museum boasts a vast collection of works of art created by numerous artists of national and international fame, including Vincenzo Caprile, Giuseppe De Sanctis, Vincenzo Gemito, Francesco Jerace, Giuseppe Renda and Eugenio Viti, which allows the visitor to retrace the currents art that characterized Naples from the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century: from Verismo to Liberty, from the Secession to the so-called "return to order", up to some avant-garde experimentation of the second half of the twentieth century.

The Photo Library includes a collection of over 5,500 artifacts, including portraits and photographic images, which show the numerous illustrious people who have frequented and, with their professionalism, made this venue famous and incomparable. At the same time, they tell of the many artistic, cultural and goliardic moments experienced within this extraordinary institution built on December 22, 1888. The photographic finds are partly exposed to the public, in the room called "Sacristy", while the rest are in available to visitors and scholars, upon request for consultation.

The Library, dedicated to the partner Ferdinando Russo, was inaugurated in 1988 on the occasion of the centenary of the establishment of the "Neapolitan Society of Artists". It boasts a collection of over 5,500 volumes dedicated to law, science, economics, psychology, customs and of course art, partly in valuable editions. The volumes, cataloged in SBN (National Library System), are freely accessible to the public and scholars during the opening days of the office.

Established in 1991, the Historical Archive preserves a heritage of indisputable value for the history of the Institution, the driving force of art and culture in Naples. For the historical value of the documents, in 2011, the Mibact - Archival Superintendency of Campania, coordinated all the phases of its reorganization and cataloging and, due to the recognized peculiar nature of the rare and precious documentary collection, conferred the status of the Archive of «Historical Archive of particularly important historical interest». The collection holds about twenty thousand units, made up of historical documents, musical scores and magazines collected during the long activity of the Foundation.