
The story
This gallery sits on the roof of the Lingotto, the vast former Fiat factory in Turin whose most famous feature is a car test track running around the top, the one used in the 1969 film The Italian Job. When the plant closed, Renzo Piano converted it, and hung a small steel box above the roofline, the Scrigno, or jewel case.
Inside are just 25 works, the private collection of Gianni and Marella Agnelli, the couple who ran Fiat. It is deliberately tiny and very rich: six Venetian views by Canaletto and two Dresden scenes by Bellotto, a Manet, a Renoir, seven Matisses and two Picassos, and a pair of Canova's dancers poised on their toes, plaster casts the sculptor took from his own marbles.
From the gallery you can step out onto the old test track itself, now planted as a garden, and walk the banked curves where Fiats were once driven flat out above the city.
Collection
21 works
La NégresseÉdouard Manet, 1862
Interior with a PhonographHenri Matisse, 1924
MéditationHenri Matisse, 1920
Reclining nude with intertwined handsAmedeo Modigliani, 1917
The Grand Canal near the Rialto, Looking NorthCanaletto, 1725
Woman and AnemonesHenri Matisse, 1921
Blonde BatherPierre-Auguste Renoir, 1882
MichaelaHenri Matisse, 1943
The Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension DayCanaletto, 1740
A Halberdier in a LandscapeGiovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1737
Campo Santi Giovanni e PaoloCanaletto, 1726
The Grand Canal from Santa Maria della Carità to the Bacino di San MarcoCanaletto, 1726
The Grand Canal from Santa Maria di Nazareth toward Santa CroceCanaletto, 1738
The Rialto, from the NorthCanaletto, 1725
Dancer with Finger on ChinAntonio Canova, 1812
Dancer with Hands on HipsAntonio Canova, 1812
Plate of Fruit and Flowering Ivy in a Rose-Pattern PotHenri Matisse, 1941
Plum Blossoms, Green BackgroundHenri Matisse, 1948
Tabac RoyalHenri Matisse, 1943
The Hofkirche in Dresden with the Castle and the Augustus BridgeBernardo Bellotto, 1748
The New Market in Dresden from the MoritzstrasseBernardo Bellotto, 1750