Eleonora Duse

The exhibition has been organised by the Italian Cultural Institute of Zagreb and the Institute of Literature, Theatre and Opera at the Giorgio Cini Foundation. It will remain open through mid-November and displays a wide selection from the Duse Collection at the Foundation in Venice, which conserves bequests made by the actress’ granddaughter Sister Mary of St Mark and other scholars and admirers of the actress.
Among the elements on display are ten of the actress’ costume-gowns made by prestigious designers such as Mariano Fortuny, Paul Poiret, Worth and S. Bellom; forty original photographs dated between 1885 and 1921, taken by important photographers of the times such as Mario Nunes Vais, Paul Audouard, Giuseppe Primoli, Aimà Dupont, Gio. Batta Sciutto and by the actress herself of Gabriele D’Annunzio. There are also objects that once belonged to Duse, such as passaports, coin purses, silver cigarette cases and matchbox holders, glasses, gloves, personal agendas, as well as annotated scripts, autograph letters and books dedicated to D’Annunzio.
The exhibition installation makes use of several pieces from the exhibition Divina Eleonora held at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in 2001: mannequins resembling the actress, elements from stage set designs and various large-scale photographs. The exhibition is accompanied by a small catalogue, which contains essays by Croatian scholars of theatre such as Nikola Batusichas and has been published through the efforts of Miroslav Gasparivic, MUO director, in accordance with Flavio Andreis, director of the Italian Cultural Institute.

Zagreb, Museum of Arts & Crafts (MUO)
28 September – 31 October 2004