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拍品專文
This painting by Giorgio de Chirico belongs to a period that the artist, in the catalogue of the exhibition where this panel was exhibited, labelled as 'Olympic' ('... that tendency to clear painting and transparent colour; that sober, dry sense of pictorial matter that I call Olympic and which had its highest affirmation in Botticelli's and the early Raphael's work'). The young girl is portrayed above a balustrade (over which an inscription, evoking the antique, is traced), and against a very simple landscape: a small pre-Raphaelite evocation, painted with tempera, and borrowing a re-discovered technique of the Quattrocento artists.
La signorina Amata is an important rediscovery. Two other versions of the painting, often exhibited and published, were so far known. The first version, owned by the association of Mario Broglio's 'Valori Plastici', was shown in a group exhibition in Germany in 1921 and illustrated in the magazine 'Valori Plastici'. It was then included, in 1967, in an exhibition at the Galleria Galatea. The second version belonged to the collection of Nino Carozzi, in Lerici, and has been included in several exhibitions in the recent years. These two versions of La signorina Amata share the same dimensions and are very similar in composition, although they display some important variants. They are 'variations on a theme', favoured by de Chirico in the 1920s, when he executed many paintings in series, the most famous of which are his Selfportraits with his mother.
For the catalogue of the exhibition where the present painting was included, de Chirico wrote: 'The paintings and drawings I show in Milan are the output of a year's work. Amongst the ones sent to the other side of the Alps, there is a copy from Raphael ( Portrait of an Unknown Woman, or The Dumb), that I consider very important and I regret not exhibiting with the others today. Instead, I was able to include in the present exhibition a copy of Michelangelo's Sacred Family - which is, in my opinion, the most difficult painting to copy in the whole Galleria degli Uffizi. I worked on my copy for six months, and tried to imbue it with the very sense of Michelangelo's work, in its colour, in its clear and light impasto, in the complex essence of its lines and shapes'.
In order to refine his hand in the style of the Old Masters, Giorgio de Chirico spent many hours in museums, initially at the Galleria Borghese, then at the Uffizi. In the case of La signorina Amata, the value of the copy is much more significant because the Metaphisical painter demonstrates that the subject most worthy of being copied is his own work.
The present painting is certainly the first version, as the documents accompanying its presentation at auction explain. Its first owner was Miss Amata Brown - an interesting detail, that reveals that its title (La signorina Amata, published with a capital 'A' in the January 1920 catalogue) refers to the name of the painting's first owner , and is not simply the adjective 'Amata' (which means 'beloved' in Italian).
The work belongs to an important phase in the life of the artist. Since 1919, he had left aside his metaphisical abstractions, and had started his exploration of museums, whilst proclaiming 'Pictor classicus sum' ('I am a classical painter'). His paintings of this period, like his masterpieces such as Il saluto agli Argonauti partenti, Niobe, Mercurio e i Metafisici, clearly show that in each of his phases, de Chirico explored the enigmas of Pittura Metafisica. Similarly, in this work, the young girl (Amata Brown) is in front of the artist, but he is already somewhere else - in the antique world from which she descended, a part of that 'Olympic' future for which she is destined.
Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco
La signorina Amata is an important rediscovery. Two other versions of the painting, often exhibited and published, were so far known. The first version, owned by the association of Mario Broglio's 'Valori Plastici', was shown in a group exhibition in Germany in 1921 and illustrated in the magazine 'Valori Plastici'. It was then included, in 1967, in an exhibition at the Galleria Galatea. The second version belonged to the collection of Nino Carozzi, in Lerici, and has been included in several exhibitions in the recent years. These two versions of La signorina Amata share the same dimensions and are very similar in composition, although they display some important variants. They are 'variations on a theme', favoured by de Chirico in the 1920s, when he executed many paintings in series, the most famous of which are his Selfportraits with his mother.
For the catalogue of the exhibition where the present painting was included, de Chirico wrote: 'The paintings and drawings I show in Milan are the output of a year's work. Amongst the ones sent to the other side of the Alps, there is a copy from Raphael ( Portrait of an Unknown Woman, or The Dumb), that I consider very important and I regret not exhibiting with the others today. Instead, I was able to include in the present exhibition a copy of Michelangelo's Sacred Family - which is, in my opinion, the most difficult painting to copy in the whole Galleria degli Uffizi. I worked on my copy for six months, and tried to imbue it with the very sense of Michelangelo's work, in its colour, in its clear and light impasto, in the complex essence of its lines and shapes'.
In order to refine his hand in the style of the Old Masters, Giorgio de Chirico spent many hours in museums, initially at the Galleria Borghese, then at the Uffizi. In the case of La signorina Amata, the value of the copy is much more significant because the Metaphisical painter demonstrates that the subject most worthy of being copied is his own work.
The present painting is certainly the first version, as the documents accompanying its presentation at auction explain. Its first owner was Miss Amata Brown - an interesting detail, that reveals that its title (La signorina Amata, published with a capital 'A' in the January 1920 catalogue) refers to the name of the painting's first owner , and is not simply the adjective 'Amata' (which means 'beloved' in Italian).
The work belongs to an important phase in the life of the artist. Since 1919, he had left aside his metaphisical abstractions, and had started his exploration of museums, whilst proclaiming 'Pictor classicus sum' ('I am a classical painter'). His paintings of this period, like his masterpieces such as Il saluto agli Argonauti partenti, Niobe, Mercurio e i Metafisici, clearly show that in each of his phases, de Chirico explored the enigmas of Pittura Metafisica. Similarly, in this work, the young girl (Amata Brown) is in front of the artist, but he is already somewhere else - in the antique world from which she descended, a part of that 'Olympic' future for which she is destined.
Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco