Two self-portraits, painted two years apart: in 1787 Angelica Kauffman portrays herself as the Muse of Painting, in 1789 Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun paints her own face. Both canvases come from the Uffizi, and this winter they are in the same exhibition on Via Toledo, about a ten-minute walk from Follaky Secret Garden.
**'Angelica e Élisabeth. L'età delle donne pittrici' (Angelica and Élisabeth. The Age of Women Painters) is at Gallerie d'Italia in Naples, Via Toledo 177, from 6 November 2026 to 7 March 2027: full ticket €8, reduced €4.** Curated by Francesco Leone, Fernando Mazzocca and Elisabetta Rasy with the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, it brings into dialogue, for the first time, the lives, works and careers of Angelica Kauffman (1741–1807) and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842).
Angelica and Élisabeth at Gallerie d'Italia: opening hours and tickets
The museum is open Tuesday to Friday from 10:00 to 19:00, and on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00, with last admission one hour before closing. It is closed on Mondays. For public holidays, Christmas and New Year included, check the hours on the visitor information page.
The reduced ticket applies, among others, to visitors over 65; admission is free for under-26s and for Intesa Sanpaolo Group customers. On the first Sunday of every month admission to the museum is free for everyone: during the exhibition these fall on 6 December, 3 January, 7 February and 7 March, the closing day. The page does not say whether the free entry also covers the exhibition: ask for confirmation before counting on it. The museum recommends booking online.
What you will see: two painters, two ways of painting
Already celebrated in their own lifetimes, the two artists made their way into the leading courts and academies of Europe, in a world largely run by men. Angelica Kauffman, cultured and cosmopolitan, mastered history painting, allegory, literary subjects and portraiture; Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was the portraitist of the aristocracy and the courts, famous for painting Queen Marie Antoinette. The exhibition page sums them up this way: Angelica 'the painter of grace', Élisabeth 'the painter of the sublime'.
Among the works on show, the official page presents:
- Kauffman's Self-Portrait as the Muse of Painting, from 1787, and Vigée Le Brun's Self-Portrait, from 1789, both from the Uffizi;
- the Portrait of the Baroness de Crussol by Vigée Le Brun, from 1785, lent by the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse;
- Venus and Adonis and Circe Seducing Ulysses by Kauffman, from 1786, lent by the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia.
Rome, Naples and the Bourbon court
A central section of the exhibition is devoted to Italy, decisive for the training and fame of both painters. Rome and Naples are the thread of the story, with the ties of both women to the Bourbon court and to the world of the Grand Tour; the exhibition then widens to the many women painters who made their names between Italy and France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
That is why seeing it in Naples has a particular flavour: leaving the museum, Via Toledo leads you towards Piazza del Plebiscito and Palazzo Reale, for over three centuries the seat of power in Naples, about a 7-minute walk from Follaky.
In the same building as the exhibition, among the masterpieces of its collections, the museum presents the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, 'Caravaggio's last masterpiece', Samson and Delilah by Artemisia Gentileschi, another woman painter, from the seventeenth century, and a View of the Borgo di Chiaia by Gaspar van Wittel: your neighbourhood in the early eighteenth century. Works from the collections can go out on loan: check on the museum's website that they are on display.
The same winter, in Chiaia: Crochet Coral Reef at Villa Pignatelli
In our own neighbourhood, at Riviera di Chiaia 200, the Casa della Fotografia at Villa Pignatelli is showing Crochet Coral Reef by Margaret and Christine Wertheim until 12 April 2027, with the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden: a textile installation worked entirely in crochet, between art and science, that recalls living coral reefs, with contributions from thousands of people around the world. The official page presents it as the largest crochet reef ever made.
It is open from 9:30 to 17:00, with last admission at 16:00, and is included in the Museo Pignatelli ticket, full price €5. Villa Pignatelli is closed on Tuesdays, 1 January and 25 December (on public holidays the closing day can shift: check the Palazzo Reale notices); the combined ticket with Palazzo Reale costs €17 and can be used within a month of your first visit.
An afternoon between Via Toledo and Chiaia, even in the rain
The closing days do not coincide: Gallerie d'Italia closes on Mondays, Villa Pignatelli on Tuesdays, Palazzo Reale on Wednesdays, opening its Royal Apartment from 9:00 to 20:00 on the other days. From Thursday to Sunday you will find all three open, public holidays aside.
A possible day in November or December: the morning at Villa Pignatelli, which closes at 17:00; the afternoon at Gallerie d'Italia, open until 19:00 or 20:00. If it rains, the museum's coat check is staffed and free, umbrellas included, and on the ground floor are the café and the Luminist bistro. The iron and glass roof of Galleria Umberto I is about an 8-minute walk from Follaky; more ideas for wet weather in Naples in the rain.
If you already know Naples, the exhibition is a good reason to come back and take your time (Naples, the second time); the rest of the month is in Naples in November.
The evening: San Carlo and, at Christmas, The Nutcracker
Before the evening, you head back to your suite to change: Teatro di San Carlo is about an 8-minute walk from Follaky, leaving from Vico Monteroduni 16. Operas, ballets and concerts are in our guide to San Carlo.
Around Christmas, and until the eve of Epiphany, the theatre stages Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, choreographed by Simone Valastro: from 22 December 2026 to 5 January 2027, about two hours with an interval, with some performances at 17:00 (official page).
How many nights, and where to stay in Chiaia
For the exhibition, Villa Pignatelli and an evening at the theatre, two nights are enough; with three, you gain a day for what to see in Naples. By train, from Napoli Centrale to Follaky takes about 35–45 minutes in all by metro Line 1 from Garibaldi, or about 15–20 minutes by taxi, at a fixed fare of €18.50: give the driver Vico Monteroduni 16. Check-in is from 15:00 to 20:00, in person with Monica or Fabio; check-out is by 10:00.
Follaky Secret Garden is a boutique B&B in Palazzo Giovagnoni, inside a private residential park in Chiaia (how to reach us). The Suite Chiaia Deluxe Garden View is the most intimate, in olive green, wood and maiolica, with a picture window looking onto two adjoining private gardens; the Suite Toledo Deluxe Private Patio is larger and brighter, with a private patio. For four guests, Double Suites – Exclusive Use brings the two suites together for exclusive use. Follaky Breakfast is included, with quality products.
Two painters whom Italy made famous, and a suite about ten minutes from their exhibition: choose your nights and compare the suites.
