Palazzo Madama has a collection of graphic art composed of around 5,900 drawings and 9,000 engravings, ranging from the 16th to 19th century. The drawings are related to architecture, stage design, botany, and other subject matter. The first acquisitions took place when Vittorio Viale was director (1930–1965) in order to rediscover Piedmont Baroque art. These involved important groups of work, like the collections of the Venetian Ferruccio Asta and the Milanese Carlo Dubini with stage design drawings by the Galliari brothers, by Leonardo Marini, Ugo Gheduzzi, Alfonso Goldini, as well as drawings by Italian and foreign painters and sculptors from the 15th to 18th century. Research by Mercedes Viale Ferrero on the history of theatre has highlighted the great historical and artistic value of these collections.
As regards architecture, four volumes containing 395 drawings by Juvarra and around 900 drawings by different artists from the 18th century (Mario Ludovico Quarini, Bernardo Vittone, Luigi and Carlo Vanvitelli, Giacomo Antonio Paracca, Carlo Randoni, and others) are of absolute importance. The core of the botany drawings, mostly from the 1800s, is made up of an album of watercolors by Irene Chiapusso Voli, of the volumes of Francesco Lorenzo Freylino with plates that reproduce the flora of Turin’s botanical garden, and of works by the naturalist Giovambattista Barla.
Finally, special mention must also be made of the graphic art collections of individual artists, like the chinoiserie albums of Cristian Wehrlin, which served as a model for the frescoes in Villa della Regina, the drawings of Pietro Domenico Olivero, of Claudio Francesco Beaumont, and of the medal engraver Lorenzo Lavy.
The collection of prints is related above all to Savoy iconography and the history of Turin, with rare works, collected over the years by Vittorio Viale with the advice of the local history historian Ada Peyrot in order to create a true city museum.
