Giorgina Venosta – Portraits: Giorgina and Work
Giorgina began working out of necessity, following her separation from her first husband, Bernardo Caprotti, who left her with nothing.
In the photo above, she is at Corriere della Sera, where she began her professional journey and where her friendship with Giulia Maria Crespi—la grande dame of the newspaper and the one who would steer it toward a more modern identity—deepened.
She had to make a living, and determination was never lacking. Strikingly beautiful and naturally elegant, she could hardly go unnoticed: an old, faded newspaper page from 1964 still shows her, full-page, as a model in an Emilio Pucci fashion show.
Fortunately, little by little, she began to find a sense of stability. Her work led her to become a “Rinascentina”, a woman employed at La Rinascente in Milan—a hotbed of new ideas and trends in fashion and interior design during the 1960s and 1970s. Here, she worked alongside extraordinary and talented women such as Adriana Botti Monti, her lifelong friend and the department store’s Art Director, and Rosellina Archinto, who, before becoming a publisher and much more, also began her career under La Rinascente’s roof.
Eventually, Giorgina joined the auction house Christie’s.
She was so skilled that when she was promoted to executive in 1981, the director, Edoarda Sanna della Porta, informed her with a letter in which she wrote—almost moved—that there was nothing more she could teach her, as Giorgina had become “tempered, mature, a leader any company would be proud to have and any employee would respect and willingly follow.”
Her determination and experience gave her newfound confidence, and so, a few years later, she embarked on her final major professional adventure: co-founding the company Consulenza d’Arte with two partners, serving as a certified gemologist.
She retired in 1998, after over thirty years of adventures and hardships that, in the end, gifted her with a truly unique and inspiring professional life.
Bibliography:
G. CAPROTTI, Le ossa dei Caprotti, una storia italiana, Milano, 2024/3.
