Cariparma: Bocchi room and de Strobel room
AMEDEO BOCCHI, Wheat and abundance, 1917 (Parma, Cariparma headquarters).
AMEDEO BOCCHI, Honeycomb and bees, 1917 (Parma, Cariparma headquarters).
DANIELE DE STROBEL, Transportation of milk (Parma, Cariparma-Crédit Agricole headquarters).
DANIELE DE STROBEL, Tomato harvesting (Parma, Cariparma-Crédit Agricole headquarters).
DANIELE DE STROBEL, Tomato processing factory (Parma, Cariparma-Crédit Agricole headquarters).
The shadow of the cupola of the Steccata stretches as far as piazza Garibaldi. A narrow passage brings us back here to visit the head offices of the local bank Cassa di Risparmio (today Cariparma – Crédit Agricole). Inside, two fascinating places bring the food theme into the 20th-century world of art.
The Boardroom, or Sala del Consiglio, of Cassa di Risparmio was entirely designed – from the wall paintings to the furnishings and lighting – by the Parmesan painter Amedeo Bocchi (1883-1976) between 1915 and 1917, and it reverberates with Klimtian echoes and Vienna Secession references.
One of the walls, dedicated to the theme of savings, symbolically depicts the work and abundance of the Parma countryside through crops of golden wheat and dripping honeycombs.
Close by, in what was once the Boardroom of the Chamber of Commerce and is now part of the Cariparma headquarters, we find the room displaying the large oil murals painted by Daniele de Strobel (1873-1942) between 1924 and 1925. The walls tell the story of how milk is made, showing dairy cattle, women transporting the white nectar and, finally, a typical dairy for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. The opposite wall depicts tomato harvesting and a factory where the precious tomatoes are processed into paste and preserves.