Giorgio de Chirico

André Breton, Paris (commissioned from the artist in 1924)

René Gaffé, Brussels (probably acquired from the above by December 1929)

Henry and Esther Clifford, Philadelphia (acquired from the above through E.L.T. Mesens, Brussels, on 25-26 June 1936)

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (acquired from the above on 26 February 1941)

Hugh Chisholm, Woodbury, Connecticut (acquired from the above on 30 April 1942)

Bridget Bate Tichenor, New York (acquired by descent from the above by 1955)

Gerrit and Sydie Lansing, New York

Galerie Marie-Louise Jeanneret, Geneva

Acquired from the above circa 1979-80 by the present owner

London, New Burlington Galleries, The International Surrealist Exhibition, 1936, no. 55, p. 16 (dated 1916)

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, 1936-37, pl. 214, illustrated; pp. 39 and 260

New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Giorgio de Chirico, Exhibition of Early Paintings, 1940, no. 15

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Giorgio de Chirico, 1955, pp. 127-28, illustrated; pp. 134 and 160

New York, The Museum of Modern Art; London, Tate Gallery; Munich, Haus der Kunst and Paris, Centre Pompidou, De Chirico, 1982-83, pl. 89, pp. 54, note 68, 72-73 and 79, note 46; p. 196, illustrated

New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Surrealism: Two Private Eyes, 1999, vol. I, no. 62, p. 117; p. 119, illustrated in color (dated 1925)

Boris Ternovetz, Giorgio de Chirico, Milan, 1928, p. 9; n.p., illustrated (dated 1916)

Sélection. Chronique de la vie artistique, vol. 8, no. 8, December 1929, p. 47 (dated 1917)

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, “Giorgio de Chirico,” Documents, 1930, vol. 2, no. 6, p. 336, illustrated (dated 1917)

James Thrall Soby, After Picasso, Hartford and New York, 1935, p. VIII; pl. 37, illustrated (dated 1917)

Carlo Belli, Il Rubicone, no. 7, 1935, n.p., illustrated

André Breton, What is Surrealism?, London, 1936, frontispiece, illustrated 

Giovanni Scheiwiller, Lo Duca Giorgio de Chirico, Milan, 1936, pl. VII, illustrated (dated 1916)

Ejler Bille, Picasso, Surrealisme, Abstrakte Kunst, Copenhagen, 1945, p. 205, illustrated; p. 283 (dated 1917)

René Gaffé, Giorgio de Chirico, le Voyant, Brussels, 1946, p. 10; pl. 17, illustrated (dated 1917)

James Thrall Soby, “De Chirico: case history of the metaphysician,” ARTnews, vol. 54, no. 5, September 1955, p. 35

Sele arte, vol. IV, no. 20, September-October 1955, pp. 22-23 illustrated

Luciano Doddoli, “Sono un prigioniero,” La fiera letteraria, vol. XLIII, no. 17, 25 April 1968, pp. 10-11 (titled Le Muse)

Massimo Carrà, Patrick Waldberg and Ewald Rathke, Metaphysical Art, London, 1971, no. 139, p. 212; n.p., illustrated

Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Il Caso de Chirico: saggi e studi di Carlo L. Ragghianti, 1934-1978, Florence, 1979, pp. 120-21, illustrated

Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Giorgio de Chirico «Le rêve de Tobie». Un interno ferrarese, 1917 e le origini del Surrealismo, Rome, 1980, no. 85, pp. 29, note 21, and 62; p. 63, illustrated (dated circa 1924)

Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Paolo Baldacci, eds., Giorgio de Chirico, Parigi 1924-1929, dalla nascita del surrealismo al crollo di Wall Street, Milan, 1982, no. 1, p. 479, illustrated; pp. 577-78

Exh. Cat., Milan, Galleria Paolo Baldacci, Giorgio de Chirico i temi della metafisica, 1985, p. 11

Exh. Cat., Milan, Palazzo Reale, De Chirico gli anni Venti, 1987, p. 112, illustrated (dated circa 1924)

Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, La Vita di Giorgio de Chirico, Turin, 1988, pp. 138-39

“Giorgio de Chirico, 1888-1978,” Modern Arts Criticism, vol. 2, 1992, p. 143

Exh. Cat., New York, Paolo Baldacci Gallery, Giorgio de Chirico: Betraying the Muse: De Chirico and the Surrealists, 1994, no. 47, pp. 52, 54, 111 and 116; p. 57, illustrated

Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, De Chirico Gli anni Trenta, Milan, 1995, pp. 105, 249 and 363-64; p. 107, illustrated (in reproduction of Carlo Belli, Il Rubicone, no. 7, 1935, n.p., illustrated) (dated 1916)

Paolo Baldacci, De Chirico: The Metaphysical Period 1888-1919, Milan, 1997, no. A6, p. 420, illustrated

Alice Gambrell, Women Intellectuals, Modernism, and Difference: Transatlantic Culture, 1919-1945, Cambridge, 1997, pp. VIII, 69 and 71; pl. 6, p. 70, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Verona, Galleria dello Scudo, de Chirico gli anni Trenta, 1998-99, fig. A, p. 105; p. 110, illustrated (dated 1924-25)

Jole de Sanna, “Giorgio de Chirico - André Breton: Duel à mort,” Metaphysical Art, nos. 1/2, 2002, pp. 64-65, 71 and 81

Giovanna Rasario, "The Works of Giorgio de Chirico in the Castelfranco Collection. The 'Disquieting Muse' Affaire,"Metafisica, nos. 5/6, 2006, pp. 287-90, 292-93, 296 and 297, note 127 

Exh. Cat., Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, la fabrique des rêves, 2009, no. 43, pp. 116 and 300

Elena Pontiggia, ed., Giorgio de Chirico: Lettere 1909-1929, Milan, 2018, p. 311

Victoria Noel-Johnson, “De Chirico in the René Gaffé Collection & the Role of E.L.T. Mesens (Brussels-London),” Metaphysical Art, nos. 19/20, 2020, fig. 11, pp. 47, note 14, 48-49, note 16, 50, note 19, 51, 53-55, 57-61, 64, 66 and 80; p. 49, illustrated 

Fabio Benzi, Giorgio de Chirico. Life and Paintings, New York, 2023, pp. 295-98 and 300-12; p. 299, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Conegliano, Palazzo Sarcinelli, Giorgio de Chirico: Metafisica continua, 2023-24, pp. 18-22, 27, 29-30, 32 note 15; p. 21, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Turin, Museo di Arti Decorative, Giorgio de Chirico: 1924, 2024-25, p. 29, illustrated; pp. 13, 17, 22, 25, 27-30, 32, 34, 226, 228, 230-235

Vibrant, dreamlike and profoundly enigmatic, Le Muse inquietanti stands among the most iconic and enduring images of Giorgio de Chirico’s career. A work of singular historical and artistic significance, it marks the artist’s first revisitation of an earlier composition—a practice that would become a cornerstone of the artist’s work and have a profound impact on the history of Modern art.

Initially conceived circa 1918 at the height of the artist’s renowned Metaphysical Period, the subject of the present work hails from the most inventive of de Chirico’s career, during which he produced works that interrogated the nature of existence by juxtaposing grounded objects—such as statues, piazzas, mannequins, buildings and other geometric figures—with dreamlike landscapes. The present version emphatically showcases themes of monumentality, nostalgia, melancholy and distortion of reality that characterize his most important and celebrated paintings. As historian James Thrall Soby would later proclaim, the present work is “the greatest…of de Chirico’s entire career… The picture attracts and repels, beguiles and frightens, conveys a warm nostalgic aura but at the same time suggests an impending catastrophe. There is no action; the piazza is still; the figures wait” (James Thrall Soby, Giorgio de Chirico, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955, pp. 134-36).

Born to Italian parents in the Greek port city of Volos, de Chirico began his studies at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 1905, where he encountered the paintings of Arnold Böcklin and the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Otto Weininger, and Arthur Schopenhauer—figures whose philosophical and epistemological ideas would profoundly shape his imagery. After settling in Italy in 1909, the young artist developed a style of painting that he would eventually term ‘Metaphysical Art.’ Featuring elements such as mannequins, classical statues and other geometric objects, all suspended in disquieting, deserted piazzas, the works conceived during de Chirico’s prime period of 1910–1919 are considered his very best, boldly juxtaposing Greco-Roman referents with with the theatricality of the modern world to create surreal scenes that evoke a sense of both nostalgia and unsettling alienation.

The first iteration Le Muse inquietanti emerged from this context in 1918, depicting a central piazza in the Northern Italian city of Ferrara, where de Chirico resided during World War I following his 1915 military discharge. "The appearance of Ferrara, one of the loveliest cities in Italy, has made a deep impression on me,” the artist later expounded, “but what struck me above all and inspired me from the metaphysical point of view in which I was working, was the appearance of certain interiors in Ferrara, certain window displays, certain shops, certain houses, certain quarters" (Giorgio de Chirico, Memorie della mia vita, Rome, 1945, pp. 122–23).

Against the central plane of La Muse inquietanti unfolds an expansive, sun-drenched piazza, its surface of cobblestones supplanted with long planks of wood evocative of a theatrical stage. Set against an ominous, yet radiant, green sky at sunset, the background is dominated by the Castello Estense, a moated medieval castle located in the center of the city. De Chirico had previously depicted the Castello Estense in his 1915 work I Divertimenti di una giovane ragazza, now held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In Le Muse inquietanti, he offers a broader view and more vivid palette, the castle now glowing a deep scarlet under the setting sun that radiates seemingly beyond the canvas edge. To the left, a Renaissance-style arcade lies in shadow; to the right, a pale factory with two rust-red smokestacks rises inexplicably from below the piazza’s surface.

While notably devoid of human presence, the present work is populated with a duo of titular Muses, Olympian goddesses of inspiration in the arts, literature and science. The bodies of these Muses are constructed in three parts—their torsos are unambiguously human, dressed in classical robes; their lower bodies morph into fluted columns; and in place of a human head are the featureless heads from a dressmaker’s mannequins, hauntingly blank and inscrutable. The left Muse, her back to the viewer, is accompanied by a free-standing club, illuminating her to be Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy; the right Muse, seated facing the viewer, is accompanied by a red mask that leans against her left side, revealing her as Thalia, the Muse of comedy. In the immediate foreground, a multicolored geometric box lays on the ground, inexplicably rendered from the perspective of the seated Thalia, distorting the audience’s viewpoint. At the right of the painting, a third figure stands enveloped by shadow in front of the arcade: Apollo—the deity of the sun, music, and prophecy, as well as the leader of the Nine Muses—whose head is also transfigured into that of a faceless mannequin.

The present work, de Chirico’s first revisitation of an earlier composition, was commissioned by André Breton, the poet, theorist and founder of Surrealism, who recognized in de Chirico a progenitor of the movement. Breton’s early championing of de Chirico, combined with his role as collector, situates this painting at the very heart of Surrealist history. Breton first encountered de Chirico’s Metaphysical Painting at the home of fellow poet and patron Guillaume Apollinaire in 1916 and later wrote, “I believe that a true modern mythology is taking shape. It is up to Giorgio de Chirico to ensure that it is remembered forever” (André Breton, Livres choisis. Giorgio de Chirico, 1919 republished in Littérature, no. 11, January 1920, pp. 29-30).

Just as he was among de Chirico’s most vocal champions, Breton also became one of his most voracious collectors. By late 1923, Breton took interest in acquiring the first iteration of Le Muse inquietanti, then owned by Giorgio Castelfranco, who ultimately refused to sell it. In its place, de Chirico offered to create another version of the work. Fabio Benzi writes, “It was at this point that de Chirico, noting the difficulty of the negotiation, and feeling himself to be helpless in assisting with the negotiations, proposed to make a copy of the Muses… by way of a conciliatory gesture. He reassured him that the works would be identical, only better painted… [with] no defect other than that of being executed with more beautiful materials and a more skillful technique,’ in line with his current research… This is therefore the first exact ‘copy’ ever made by Giorgio de Chirico of one of his Metaphysical works” (Fabio Benzi, La prima “replica” di un dipinto metafisico di de Chirico e il rapporto con Breton: Le Muse inquietanti, 1924, 2025 (unpublished), p. 2). The execution of the present work thus heralded de Chirico’s new practice of revisiting prior compositions, one that would endure throughout the remainder of his career. Such early reiterations are widely regarded as the most compelling of their kind, combining technical mastery with the intensity of the artist’s original vision in a manner that later versions would seldom surpass. James Thrall Soby later declared the present version as “superior in technique and feeling,” to de Chirico’s later revisitations of the Metaphysical works (James Thrall Soby, The Early Chirico, New York, 1941, pp. 70-71). Marking a crowning moment in the history of Surrealism, De Chirico’s delivery of Le Muse inquietanti to Breton in Paris upon their first-ever meeting in November 1924 coincided with the very inception of the formal movement, occurring mere days after Breton’s publication of the first Manifeste du surréalisme.

In 1936, the present version of Le Muse inquietanti featured in the seminal International Surrealist Exhibition at New Burlington Galleries in London, constituting the movement’s inaugural exhibition in the United Kingdom and solidifying the link between the nascent British Surrealist group. The New Burlington show would later be remembered as one of the defining events in the history of Surrealism. During this exhibition, the present work was sold to Henry Clifford, curator of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, through its organizer, Belgian gallerist E.L.T Mesens. Further testifying to its importance within de Chirico’s oeuvre, Le Muse inquietanti was later included in the watershed 1936 Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. This pivotal show was largely responsible for introducing Surrealism to the American public.

The present work would later feature at The Museum of Modern Art’s major 1955 survey of the artist, around which time it entered the collection of Bridget Bate Tichenor, a seminal French-British painter who would later join the Surrealist circles in New York and Mexico. Le Muse inquietanti was also central to the first comprehensive posthumous de Chirico retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art; Tate Gallery, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris in 1982-83.

Le Muse inquietanti has proven both enduring and influential due to its iconography and its embodiment of de Chirico’s iterative practice. It would particularly resonate with Pop Art figurehead Andy Warhol, who encountered the present work at the artist’s 1982 retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art. Warhol there recognized the two artists’ shared fascination with notions of originality, famously proclaiming: “De Chirico repeated the same images throughout his life. I believed he did it not only because people and dealers asked him to do it, but because he liked it and viewed his repetition as a way of expressing himself. This is probably what we have in common… The difference? What he repeated regularly, year after year, I repeat the same day in the same painting” (quoted in Exh. Cat., London, Waddington Custot, Andy Warhol (After de Chirico), 1998, p. 8). That year, Warhol would pay tribute to de Chirico with a series of silkscreens derived from several of the artist’s works—including Le Muse inquietanti. Fully showcasing both de Chirico’s enigmatic symbolism and his then-radical practice of self-reference, Le Muse inquietanti continues to shape artistic imagination nearly six decades after its execution.

Held in the same esteemed private collection for nearly five decades and boasting an illustrious exhibition history and unparalleled provenance, Le Muse inquietanti presents one of the most distinguished images of Modern art and stands at center of the history of Surrealism itself.