The first floor of Palazzo Madama hosts the Baroque art collections, installed in the apartment of the second Madama Reale, Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours. These include paintings, sculptures, furniture, and decorative arts from the 1600s to the early 1800s, in many cases from the Savoy collections. Painting from the 17th century offers a selection of canvases from several schools influenced by Caravaggio, such as the Assumption and Saint Jerome by Orazio Gentileschi, Saint Catherineby Giovanni Ricca, and Adoration of the Shepherds by Matthias Stomer, together with works by Giulio Cesare Procaccini and Guglielmo Cairo. Piedmont art from the 1700s is represented by the genre scenes of Giovanni Michele Graneri and Pietro Domenico Olivero, whose paintings document the city’s life and appearance toward the mid-century, along with the arcadian landscapes of Vittorio Amedeo Cignaroli. Savoy portraiture ranges from large-format equestrian portraits of Duke Carlo Emanuele II and Duchess Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, to the painting of Carlo Emanuele III in majesty by the artist Maria Giovanna Clementi, called la Clementina. The works of Giovanni Battista Crosato, View of Castello di Rivoli from the East by Giovanni Paolo Pannini, and Judgment of Solomon by Agostino Masucci are examples of Savoy patronage for the court residences.
The collection of Piedmont cabinetry in the 1700s offers a sampling of extreme quality of inlaid art in precious types of wood, ivory, tortoise shell, and mother of pearl: the medal box of Luigi Prinotto, containing medals from the time of Louis XIV of France that once belonged to Carlo Emanuele III of Savoy; a pair of tables, a kneeling-stool, and a crucifix from the Ospedale maggiore di San Giovanni Battista by Pietro Piffetti; and the miniature sculptures by Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo, the product of the extreme patience and technical skill of this cabinet maker, who was appointed Royal wooden sculptor by His Majesty in 1787.
Some of the most important sculptures include the two groups depicting Judgment of Solomon and Sacrifice of Isaac, which Carlo Emanuele III commissioned in 1741 to Simon Troger, a native of Tirolo but active in Munich with a flourishing workshop that supplied various rulers who were captivated by this master’s rare talent in sculpting difficult and precious materials like ivory and combining these with special types of wood.
