Le collegiali

Initially Arturo Martini trained as a goldsmith and a potter but by 1905 had begun to sculpt, studying both at Treviso and Venice in his native Italy before travelling to Munich to study under Adolf von Hildebrand. He first exhibited in Paris in 1912 and later won the first prize for sculpture at the first Quadriennale exhibition in Rome in 1931. Amongst his most significant works is monumental the bas-relief panel he was commissioned to produce for the Milan Palace of Justice in 1932, which simultaneously conveys the same sense of movement and tension as evoked by this small scale work. Working in variety of mediums Martini generally favoured earthenware for his evocative small scale figurative works, such as this sculpture, no doubt as a result of his early training as a potter and this work is typical of the stylized modern oeuvre which he refined during the long summer of the inter-war years.