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The hall on the third floor is largely dedicated to the exhibition of sculptures, enhanced among other things by their arrangement in relation to the landscape that can be admired through the large windows overlooking the city, but also features an overview of painting during the 18th and 19th centuries.
A significant example of 19th-century Prato painting is provided by Antonio Marini, an original interpreter of Tuscan purism and an expert restorer, but the Self-portrait by Luigi Mussini, Alessandro Franchi's Sienese master and a true exponent of purist culture, is also of great impact among the artworks on display.
At the beginning of the 20th century, painting in Prato revolved around the figure of Ardengo Soffici, who in 1907 moved from Paris to nearby Poggio a Caiano, his paintings The veteran and Cabins are exhibited here. Interesting artist Arrigo del Rigo, who died prematurely, is presented through some of his paintings, one of which, The Mother, was recently donated to the City of Prato by Franco Bertini.
Even before that, the municipal collections were further expanded by Sandra and Carlo Palli's donation of two artworks by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Yves Klein.
The Museum collection includes several artworks by Antonio Marini, a painter and restorer who devoted himself to devotional subjects in the style of the early Renaissance masters. An example of this is the painting exhibited here, known as the Madonna of the Kiss, which echoes the style of Perugino. His wife Giulia Marini was also highly appreciated at the time. She painted delicate landscapes, but also still life paintings and bouquets of flowers, as shown by the examples kept in the repositories. The Portrait in three poses by the painter from Prato is owed to Franz Adolf von Stürler, a pupil of Ingres and friend of Lorenzo Bartolini and the Marini family. Also by the Swiss artist is René of Anjou and Isabella of Lorraine, an artwork representative of the neo-Gothic taste of the period. The works on display also include other self-portraits of artists, such as the youthful artwork by Alessandro Ferrarini, and the self-portrait with wife and children by Giuseppe Ciardi from Prato, exhibited in the small room that leads to the lift.
The masters of the so-called “School of Prato” - Arrigo del Rigo, Quinto Martini, Giulio Pierucci, Gino Brogi, Oscar Gallo and Leonetto Tintori - wrote an important page in the history of 20th century Italian art. In this room are valuable testaments to the talent of Arrigo del Rigo, who died at the tender age of 24, probably by suicide, the intense Self-portrait, inspired by the Magic Realism of 1920s Italian painting, and Houses at the Petrino Bridge, an example of the painter's ability to paint views and landscapes of the city at the turn of the century with great evocative power.
The “putative” father of the Prato School was Ardengo Soffici. A painter and writer, he also brought to the artists of Prato the stimuli of the turmoil of Paris at the beginning of the 20th century and the lively intellectual climate in Florence in those years. In this room, his artworks testify to the pursuit of essential values and the recovery of “simplicity before nature”.
