Patrizia Venturini Featured in Io Donna

Patrizia Venturini was recently featured in Io Donna’s profile on influential Women of the Art World. Read the full article in the original Italian [here], or explore our abbreviated English translation below.

The Women Behind Major Exhibitions

What do couriers and registrars do? Who brings private collectors’ artworks to the public eye? Who insures a Caravaggio? Many women work in essential, behind-the-scenes roles that ensure the success of an exhibition—often with an element of mystery.

It’s November 3, 1961. At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Jacqueline Kennedy inaugurates the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition from Cairo, marking the start of the era of blockbuster art shows. This million-dollar business now moves thousands of works between major museums across the globe. Behind every Picasso displayed in Milan that’s traveled from New York, there’s painstaking organizational work where women increasingly play a vital role...

“We Protected the Crown Jewels”

Patrizia Venturini is the General Manager of Goppion Technology in Trezzano sul Naviglio (MI), a company that creates museum display cases, including the one that protects the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

“The perfect display case must ensure the artwork’s security, provide the necessary chemical and physical conditions for proper conservation, allow for perfect lighting with anti-reflective glass, and meet aesthetic requirements. The pursuit of this synthesis has guided my work for 35 years, ever since I joined the family business after earning a law degree and specializing in Business Administration. We work with the world’s most important museums, 80 percent of them abroad; the case that protects the most famous version of The Scream by Munch at the National Museum in Oslo is ours. One special challenge was the cases for the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. It was the 1990s, and there was a risk of terrorist attacks from the IRA: the cases needed to withstand even a bomb. The prototypes were pre-tested by British intelligence services. Artworks and artifacts hold immense cultural value and must also be preserved for future generations.”