Marino Marini

Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York

Acquired from the above

Pasadena Art Museum, The New Renaissance in Italy, Twentieth Century Italian Art, 1958, no. 60 

Phoenix Art Museum, 1959-60 (on loan)

Los Angeles, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Italian Art of the Twentieth Century, 1961, no. 32

New York, Time & Life Exhibit Center, An Exhibition of Contemporary Italian Sculpture, 1962, no. 12

Los Angeles, Lytton Center of the Visual Arts, Collector's Choice, Sculpture Exhibit, 1964, no. 28

Los Angeles, UCLA Art Galleries, Twentieth Century Sculpture from Southern California Collections, 1972 

Santa Barbara, University of California, The Art Galleries, 19 Sculptors of the 40s, 1973

Eduard Trier, Marino Marini, Cologne, 1954, illustration of another cast pl. 28

Helmut Lederer and Eduard Trier, The Sculpture of Marino Marini, London and Stuttgart, 1961, no. 68, illustration of another cast

Patrick Waldberg, Herbert Read and Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini, Complete Works, New York, 1970, no. 315, illustration of another cast p. 370 (with incorrect measurements)

Carlo Pirovano, Marino Marini, Scultore, Milan, 1972, no. 319, illustration of another cast p. 166 (with incorrect measurements)

Carlo Pirovano, ed., Marino Marini, Catalogo del Museo di San Pancrazio di Firenze, Milan, 1988, pls. 149 & 150, illustrations of another cast pp. 160 & 161

Carlo Pirovano, Il Museo Marino Marini a Florence, Milan, 1990, illustration of another cast p. 33

Marco Meneguzzo, Marino Marini – Cavalli e Cavalieri, Milan, 1997, no. 78, illustration of another cast pp. 143-147

Fondazione Marino Marini, ed., Marino Marini, Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures, Milan, 1998, no. 377b, edition catalogued p. 265; no. 377a, illustration of the polychrome plaster p. 264

Excellent condition. The bronze displays a mottled green patina that is in excellent condition. There are no scratches, abrasions or excessive handling marks on the surface. There are several small foundry plugs on the base, which are an inherent feature of the cast. The sculpture is structurally sound.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The present work is a striking example of Marini's horse and rider theme.  Its extraordinary power and beauty lie in the careful rendering of its surface, showing the artist's almost painterly attention to finish.  Inspired like so many Italian artists by antiquity, Marini was drawn not to the refinement of Hellenistic sculpture, but to the rougher, more energetic expression of the Archaic period in Greece and Etruscan sculpture in Italy.  The polychrome plaster cast of Cavaliere is now in the Collezione d'Arte Religiosa Moderna at the Vatican Museum in Rome.  Of the six bronze casts, five were executed during the artist's life-time, and are currently in the following collections: Nihon University College of Art, Tokyo; Galerie Moderner Kunst, Basel; two in private collections and the present cast.  The sixth example, now at the Marino Marini Museum in Florence, was cast posthumously.

A dominant theme throughout Marini's career, the horse and rider was rarely invested with as much energy and dramatic force as the present work. In the years before and during the Second World War, Marini envisioned horses with grace and poise reminiscent of  classical sculpture.  In the 1950s, however, this subject was charged with an energy reflecting the anxiety and instability of the post-war era. In contrast to the tranquillity of Marini's horses of the 1940s, the present work indicates the artist's move towards the more expressive rendering of this theme that characterize his mature work, while retaining the elegance of his earlier pieces.  His horsemen become increasingly insecure on their mounts, flinging their arms out to break their fall, or slipping helplessly off the horse's back.  In this new approach to the classical subject of horse and rider, Marini subverts the once triumphant vision of human mastery over a magnificent animal.  This reversal of the relationship between the two creatures reflects the figure's vulnerability as well as the uncertainty of the times that had such a profound effect on the artist.

In Cavaliere the horse is planted steadfastly on the ground, with its legs firmly rooted to the four corners of the base; with an energetic backward movement of its upper body, it is throwing off the rider, who is about to fall with his hands swung up in the air.  The movement of the two bodies is caught at the critical point when the equilibrium is broken, when the inevitability of the fall becomes imminent in the eyes of the rider as well as of the spectator, without the actual fall having yet materialized.  The artist depicts the scene at its most dramatic and climatic moment, thus making the psychological element of realization as powerful as the physical tension.  The intersecting diagonal lines of the horse and rider create a dynamic relationship between the two bodies, whilst the angular, geometric shapes that dominate the work emphasize the drama of movement.

This intensity of expression in the present work evokes Picasso's Guernica of 1937, which of all 20th century art had the most lasting effect on Marini.  His post-war series of Riders, and the series of Warriors begun in 1956, owed much to his study of Picasso's masterpiece.  The stark, angular shapes of Marini's figures achieve the same striking effect as Picasso's black-and-white palette.  The dramatic jolt of the horse's body, its head and neck fully stretched, echoes the pose and expression of the horse in the center of Guernica, lost in the chaos of the scene.  But while in Guernica the rider had already fallen on the ground, in Cavaliere the two bodies are inseparable, united in a single movement.  As Giovanni Carandente noted: "The myth of the rider, of the man who derives his force and impetus from the beast that he dominates and drives, but by which he is also unsaddled, grew from year to year, brought worldwide celebrity to the sculptor, and resulted in repeated masterpieces. In some works the connection between the horse and the rider becomes almost symbiotic, as though the artist would melt the two bodies into one to represent Nessus, the mythical centaur" (G. Carandente, in Fondazione Marino Marini, ed., op. cit., pp. 12-13).