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Lot Essay
The Marino Marini Foundation has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Conceived in 1953, Piccolo miracolo illustrates the dramatic turn which occurred in Marino Marini’s sculptures in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as the angst and turmoil of the conflict found their way into his art. The present work addresses one of the key themes of Marini’s entire oeuvre, that of the horse and its rider, which he had begun to explore in the 1930s, having been deeply impressed by the equestrian statue of Henry II at the Bamberg Cathedral in Germany. Marini’s early riders displayed the grace and poise of classical statuary, yet the subject would evolve throughout the years, acquiring more troubled, dramatic tones to reflect the psychological trauma in the aftermath of the war. In an interview from 1958, the artist explained the reasoning behind this shift in his art: ‘…developments in the post-war world soon began to disappoint me, and I no longer felt any such faith in the future. On the contrary, I then tried to express, in each one of my subsequent equestrian figures, a greater anxiety, and a more devastating despair’ (Marini, interview with Edouard Roditi, 1958, pp. 85-90, in E. Roditi, Dialogues: Conversations with European Artists at Mid-Century, San Francisco, 1990, p. 88).
The present work, hand-coloured and painstakingly chiselled by the artist, is a striking example of this move in Marini’s art, capturing a sense of danger and tragedy in its dynamic pose. The work portrays a moment of extreme peril, as the horse and his passenger fall backwards towards the earth, their weighty bodies caught in the moment just before they hit the ground. Their distress is palpable, with both animal and human stretching into strenuous poses as they attempt to save themselves from the tumble, the horse extending its neck to the sky with all its might, the rider holding his body taut, his legs clinging to the animal’s shoulders as he begins to fall through the air. However, their attempts to steady themselves appear to be in vain, their momentum and balance suggesting that their fall is inevitable. In this way, Marini introduces a sense of emergency and drama to the work, which he believed could act as a compelling, powerful symbol of the bewildering disquiet of life in the post-war period.
Conceived in 1953, Piccolo miracolo illustrates the dramatic turn which occurred in Marino Marini’s sculptures in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, as the angst and turmoil of the conflict found their way into his art. The present work addresses one of the key themes of Marini’s entire oeuvre, that of the horse and its rider, which he had begun to explore in the 1930s, having been deeply impressed by the equestrian statue of Henry II at the Bamberg Cathedral in Germany. Marini’s early riders displayed the grace and poise of classical statuary, yet the subject would evolve throughout the years, acquiring more troubled, dramatic tones to reflect the psychological trauma in the aftermath of the war. In an interview from 1958, the artist explained the reasoning behind this shift in his art: ‘…developments in the post-war world soon began to disappoint me, and I no longer felt any such faith in the future. On the contrary, I then tried to express, in each one of my subsequent equestrian figures, a greater anxiety, and a more devastating despair’ (Marini, interview with Edouard Roditi, 1958, pp. 85-90, in E. Roditi, Dialogues: Conversations with European Artists at Mid-Century, San Francisco, 1990, p. 88).
The present work, hand-coloured and painstakingly chiselled by the artist, is a striking example of this move in Marini’s art, capturing a sense of danger and tragedy in its dynamic pose. The work portrays a moment of extreme peril, as the horse and his passenger fall backwards towards the earth, their weighty bodies caught in the moment just before they hit the ground. Their distress is palpable, with both animal and human stretching into strenuous poses as they attempt to save themselves from the tumble, the horse extending its neck to the sky with all its might, the rider holding his body taut, his legs clinging to the animal’s shoulders as he begins to fall through the air. However, their attempts to steady themselves appear to be in vain, their momentum and balance suggesting that their fall is inevitable. In this way, Marini introduces a sense of emergency and drama to the work, which he believed could act as a compelling, powerful symbol of the bewildering disquiet of life in the post-war period.