Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The Municipality accepts the donation of the bronze depicting a female figure from the artist's son. Maran: “As voted by the City Council, soon there will also be a statue dedicated to a woman who contributed to the growth of our society”

Milan, 1 June 2019 – The statue of Rachele Bianchi dedicated to "her" Milan will be placed in via Vittor Pisani, on the corner with viale Ferdinando di Savoia. The Council accepted the donation by his son Giuseppe Bariona of the work "Personaggio", which will celebrate the Milanese artist and sculptor who passed away in 2018.

The work by Rachele Bianchi, created in 2014 and placed for over a year in front of the facade of Palazzo del Senato on the occasion of a personal exhibition of the artist, represents a woman wrapped in a tunic, symbolizing her moral, social and cultural qualities. In fact, the artist has always looked for these elements in the female figure, studying the cultural condition, the feelings, the historical and social path rather than the physical appearance, with the desire, which pervades a large part of her artistic production, to contribute to recognition of women's rights, an almost revolutionary theme in the 50s and highly relevant today.

“The donation of the work of a great Milanese artist takes place at a time when the city council has rightly asked the administration to create the first monument dedicated to a woman - declares the councilor for urban planning Pierfrancesco Maran -. It is therefore good to host a bronze symbol of female strength and virtue. In continuity with this, we now commit to giving the city as soon as possible, as voted by the Council, a statue dedicated to one of the many women who with their commitment have made a contribution to the growth of our society, recognizing their role as ambassadors of Milan in the world".

The bronze is 3,6 meters high and 1,7 meters wide, weighs 5 quintals and has a total economic value of 170.000 euros. For the first 10 years, the maintenance of the statue, the installation of which has already had the positive opinion of the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape and the Landscape Commission, will be the responsibility of the donor.