“La Pétroleuse Vaincue”: Lavazza brings Giacomo Ginotti’s masterpiece to the Musée d'Orsay

With the donation of the bronze sculpture “La Pétroleuse Vaincue”, the masterpiece by Italian artist Giacomo Ginotti, Lavazza has become a patron of the Musée d’Orsay. One of the most visited museums in the world, it is regarded as the home of impressionist art and contains the main works of art created between the mid-19th century and the start of the First World War. Before the acquisition, the sculpture was owned by a private collector and as such had been out of public view for years.

As a result of Lavazza’s efforts, it can now be admired by the almost four million people who visit the former railway station on the Seine every year.

 

 

The sculpture by the Piedmont artist, which dates back to 1887 and portrays the bust of a woman bound with ropes, has a special link with the Musée d’Orsay, as its subject is inspired by the popular myth of the “petroleuses”, the women rebels who used petrol to set fire to numerous buildings during the Paris Commune in 1871. Housed in the old Gare d’Orsay railway station, the museum was built on the site of a government building burned down by the popular resistance movement, which was committed to defending the city against the restoration of authoritarianism. The project in the 1980s that converted the former railway station into one of the French capital’s main cultural institutions also has strong ties with Italy, because the 17-thousand-square-metre, five-floor structure was designed by Gae Aulenti, working in partnership with Italo Rota and Piero Castiglioni.

The acquisition of La Petroleuse is yet another instance of our commitment to promoting culture in France too, a key country where we have been operating for 40 years and which is now the Group’s second largest market after Italy.

 

«Supporting the art world has always been in Lavazza Group’s DNA. So it was only natural for us to form this important partnership with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, emblem par excellence of the city and an iconic centre of culture in France, a strategic country in which we’ve been operating since 1982. Ginotti’s work was an obvious choice, as it was cast in the Mazzola foundry in Turin», said Group Board Member Francesca Lavazza.