Giorgio Morandi

Galleria del Milione, Milan (acquired by 1961)
A. Mayer, Milan
Marie-Louise Jeanneret, Geneva (acquired circa 1978-79)
Sale: Christie's, London, 28th November 1988, lot 61
Galerie di Meo, Paris
Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above)
J&P Fine Art, Zurich (acquired by 2003)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Bremen & Berlin, Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner, Stilleben von Bernard bus Morandi, 1999, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Lamberto Vitali, Morandi, Dipinti, Catalogo generale 1948 -1964, Milan, 1977, vol. II, no. 1234, illustrated n.p.

The canvas is not lined. UV examination reveals two spots of retouching towards the centre of the lower edge beneath the white jug. There is a small spot of paint loss which has been consolidated with adhesive and there are three fly spots to the centre of the canvas. There are faint stretcher bar marks visible towards each edge. This work is in overall good condition.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted in 1961, Natura Morta is an exquisitely composed example of Giorgio Morandi’s celebrated expositions of the still life genre. Within the present work, the carefully arranged combination of vessels and jars, posed against a background which has been reduced to its minimalist essentials, exudes a sense of meditative calm. Almost abstract in its paring down of objects to their core forms, Natura Morta succeeds in pushing the concept of the traditional still life to its limits. Morandi’s artistic process was meticulous. Every aspect of his art was undertaken with painstaking care, from stretching and priming canvases to the making of paints. The pots, bowls and bottles in his studio were reshaped or irregularly reconstructed and then were allowed to accrue a film of dust to obscure the crisp markings of mass manufacture, and in so doing, increase their underlying organic qualities when painted. The nuanced colour tones for which his paintings are best known are due to the attention he paid to their composition. In 1919 Morandi offered his fellow painter Carlo Carrà one of ‘the last pieces of a beautiful red earth (terra rossa) dug up, at one time, in the environs of Assisi and that for a long time has been unobtainable. Mixed with white it gives a beautiful pink such as one sees in the ancient frescos’ (quoted in Giorgio Morandi (exhibition catalogue), Tate Modern, London, 2001, p. 96).

Morandi's elegantly formed still lifes dominated in his painting throughout his career. Like other painters of his generation, he looked at the Italian art of the early Renaissance with fresh eyes, simultaneously conscious of the legacy of tradition as well as the regional and rustic aspects of his Italian cultural heritage. Additionally vital was the legacy of Paul Cézanne, whose intense focus on reality and individual way of seeing encouraged Morandi to discover the simple geometric solidity of everyday objects. Ultimately Morandi’s art sought to bridge the concerns of painterly expression and his contemporaries’ conceptual conceits. Discussing the apparent contradiction in the artist’s work Matthew Gale writes: ‘Morandi appears to be a realist, but his reality is a construct, aware of and reflective upon the artifice of painting. His objects appear ordinary, but were modified, adapted, even made, by the artist himself. His settings suggest domesticity, but were carefully conceived and lit arenas. Even his processes reflect this distance from reality or, perhaps, the distance from the ‘objective’. Morandi’s work – as befits a believer in art for art’s sake – is highly subjective. It is the construct of a constructed vision deliberately screened through processes that filter out the superficial and interpose an assertion of personality. By working in series, little observations could be allowed their magnitude’ (Matthew Gale, quoted in Giorgio Morandi (exhibition catalogue), Tate Modern, London, 2001, p. 100).