Museo della Figurina

The Museo della Figurina in Modena grew from Giuseppe Panini's collection of small printed images. Donated to the city in 1992, it now comprises more than 500,000 items, including stickers and related advertising prints. Its displays trace the history of this graphic art from early chromolithographs to postwar sports albums.

Why it matters

The Panini brothers founded their company in Modena in 1961. Giuseppe Panini's collection became a company museum in 1986, then was donated to the city in 1992. The museum opened to the public in Palazzo Santa Margherita in 2006 and is managed by AGO, the city's visual-arts foundation.

The collection treats the figurina as part of a wider history of small-format printing. Alongside stickers are prints and ephemera such as calendars, matchbox labels, paper money, menus and albums. Together they show how commercial images circulated in everyday life.

What to notice

Six large display units are designed like albums, each with eight pull-out panels. Their themes include the printed images that preceded modern stickers, chromolithography, the spread of figurine collecting in France and Italy, the Liebig series, related printed ephemera and postwar sports albums. Around 2,500 objects are on view from the much larger collection.

The Liebig holdings include cards as well as preparatory sketches, printer's proofs and lithographic stones. The collection also includes cards associated with Paris department store Au Bon Marché and nineteenth-century American cigarette cards.

Context and history

The museum's holdings extend beyond collectible cards to small prints from the nineteenth century onward. The collection includes more than 500,000 objects, while the permanent display presents a selection of about 2,500. This breadth makes the museum a record of graphic design and advertising as well as of the figurina itself.