The paintings

The heritage of the Civic Museums of Domodossola has undergone successive rearrangements, and since 2021, the paintings are partly exhibited on the second floor of the new Civic Museums in Palazzo San Francesco, while others are still kept in the rooms and storages of Palazzo Silva.

Notably, in the ground floor’s “dining room,” there are works by Federico Ashton (1836-1904), a Milanese artist with a strong bond to the surrounding valleys, which he portrayed incessantly, earning him the title of “painter of the mountains.”

On the first floor, in the room where the “noble chapel” has been rearranged, there is a copy attributed to Carlo Mellerio (1620-post 1685) of the famous artwork by Tanzio da Varallo, “The Visitation,” displayed as an altarpiece. Other religious subjects can be found throughout the visit, including the remarkable original “Ex voto alla Vergine,” featuring Saints Rocco and Sebastian and a kneeling patron.

The subjects hanging in the bedroom are more diverse, including a Dutch still life with partridges from the second half of the 17th century, the beautiful “Gesù Bambino dormiente” (1761) by Joseph De Sanctis, and two landscape paintings with figures, “La predica di San Giovanni” and “Paesaggi con figure,” which are en pendant.