Lot 4
  • 4

Giorgio de Chirico

Estimate
350,000 - 450,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Giorgio de Chirico
  • MOBILI NELLA VALLE
  • signed G. de Chirico (lower right)
  • oil on canvas
  • 100 by 81cm.
  • 39 3/8 by 31 7/8 in.

Provenance

Rino Valdameri, Milan
Galleria Barbaroux, Milan
Marino Collection, Naples
Edmondo Sacerdoti, Milan
Acquired from the above by the previous owner in the early 1970s

Exhibited

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, Arte Moderna in Italia 1915-1935, 1967, no. 950, illustrated in the catalogue (as dating from 1928)
Rome, Galleria La Medusa, I de Chirico di Sacerdoti. Opere dal 1922-1959, 1982, no. 5, illustrated in the catalogue

Literature

Raffaele Carrieri, Giorgio De Chirico, Milan, 1942, illustrated pl. XXIII (as dating from 1927)
Raffaele Monti, 'Arte in Italia', in Critica d'Arte, Florence, December 1967, fig. 166, illustrated p. 80 (as dating from 1928)
Isabella Far de Chirico & Domenico Porzio, Conoscere De Chirico, Milan, 1979, no. 324, illustrated p. 301 (as dating from 1966 and with incorrect measurements)
Claudio Bruni Sakraischik, Giorgio de Chirico. Catalogo Generale, Milan, 1984, vol. 7, no. 451, illustrated 
Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco, Giorgio de Chirico. Gli anni Trenta, Milan, 1995, no. 20, illustrated p. 116 (as dating from circa 1932)
De Chirico. Gli anni Trenta (exhibition catalogue), Galleria dello Scudo & Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, 1998-99, no. 20, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (as dating from circa 1932)

Catalogue Note

Painted circa 1929-30, Mobili nella valle belongs to a series of eight paintings on this theme (figs. 1 & 2), which De Chirico started in 1927. During his period in Paris, the artist's work was characterised by the attempt to investigate the soul of the most common everyday objects by presenting them in alternative, unexpected contexts. In the present work, by placing the armchair, the wooden wardrobe and chair in a vast, unidentified landscape, De Chirico creates an enigmatic world, verging between dream and reality, in which the pieces of furniture acquire a mysterious, ghostly presence replacing human beings. The infinite sky that surrounds them highlights the timeless, metaphysical character of the image whilst the antique column to the left of the composition is evidence that classical mythology, history and architecture provided an endless source of inspiration for the Greek-born artist, who combined these subjects with the contemporary setting to create images of a surreal quality.

 

The artist himself commented on his choice of subject matter in 1935: 'The series of my paintings of  'Furniture in landscape' came out of an idea I got in one afternoon in Paris, passing through the Saint Germain quarter, between the rue du Dragon and the rue du Vieux-Colombier. I saw there on the sidewalk, in front of the shop of a second-hand furniture dealer, some armchairs, chairs, wardrobes, tables, and a clothes-stand abandoned on the street. These things, just the sight of which arouses in us sensations and feelings that are rooted back in our more distant childhood, found so far from the sacred place where man has always loved to retreat for rest and which we call our home, took on a solemn, tragic, and even mysterious aspect' (quoted in Paolo Baldacci, Betraying the Muse, de Chirico and the Surrealists (exhibition catalogue), Paolo Baldacci Gallery, New York, 1994, p. 142).

 

De Chirico was the master of the enigmatic, and his concept of presenting everyday objects out of their habitual context proved crucial to the development of Surrealism. As Paolo Baldacci has noted, dislocation was a common theme throughout the artist's works from his surrealist period: 'The process used, common to all metaphysical painting is one of 'displacement' of the object from its context' (ibid., p. 142). In Mobili nella valle, the pieces of furniture appear before the viewer in an almost human presence whereby the large wardrobe symbolises the standing male figure and the slender chairs could be seen as complementing seated female figures. As the main protagonists of the composition, these elements acquire a powerful anthropomorphic quality, while at the same time revealing the conspicuous absence of human beings. 

 

The theme of domestic displacement has been attributed to the numerous relocations of the artist's family. De Chirico himself remarked about this human aspect of this series of works: 'The pieces of furniture appear to us in a new light, they are clothed with a strange solitude; a great intimacy is born among them, and one could say that a strange happiness floats in that narrow space that they occupy' (quoted in Giorgio de Chirico and America (exhibition catalogue), Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, 1996, p. 218).  

Fig. 1, Giorgio de Chirico, Mobili, rovine e rocce in una stanza, 1927, oil on canvas, Private Collection
Fig. 2, Giorgio de Chirico, Mobili nella valle, 1927, oil on canvas, Private Collection
Fig. 3, Giorgio de Chirico