Massimo Campigli Lot n° 86

Massimo Campigli La Sposa 1938 Fresco painting, removed from the wall in 1954 and mounted on canvas. 101 x 66 cm. Framed. Lower right signed with difficulty legible brown '[...]AMPIGLI'. The frame on the reverse with the old label of the frame maker Egisto Marconi, Bottega d'Arte Milan. - In age-appropriate condition, with restored cracks. With a photo confirmation of Massimo Campigli, Mercurio, Milan, dated 28.6.1968. Provenance Castellano Collection, Milan; Gino Moro, painter, Milan (acquired from the previous owner in 1954); Private collection Switzerland. Aesthetically, Massimo Campigli's work is clearly at home in antiquity; already the oil painting seems like fresco painting in its rough surface and summary stroke. Thus the offered fresco "La Sposa" from 1938 - presumably from a residential house - does not differ fundamentally from his oil paintings, but appears coherent in the context of the work. Also motivically, Campigli's figures appear timeless, antique. In 1933 Campigli signed the "Manifesto della Pittura Murale" and in the following years devoted himself increasingly to mural painting in the course of public commissions and competitions, such as the painting "Le Madri, le Contadine, le lavoratrice" for the 5th Triennale in Milan, which no longer exists today, or the large-scale fresco in the Palazzo Liviano in Padua, created between 1936 and 1941. In connection with an earlier commission, Campigli expresses himself, in effect: "My fresco represents an idealized form of Italy's foundations, populated by ancient objects, monuments, and piled-up legacies." (cf. exh. Cat. Post Zang Tumb Tuum. Art, Life, Politics. Italia 1918-1943, Milan 2018, p. 334, p. 463). The appropriation of ancient life as the basis for modern life is evident in our fresco "La Sposa" - the Bride - which seems to refer directly to the mural the "Marriage of Hera and Zeus" from the "House of the Tragic Poet" in Pompeii, discovered in 1824 (see comparative illustration). The goddess Hera, generally associated with marriage and holder femininity, is presented here as it were and given to the future husband. Similarities in gesture, posture and gaze to our "Sposa" are striking. The ancient painting must have been known to Campigli from the Archaeological Museum in Naples, where many Pompeian frescoes detached from the pictorial program were taken. Recalling the ancient painting, Campigli finds a modern form of celebrating the solemn moment of the wedding and capturing it in the mural.