Marino Marini
Covered by droit de suite
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"Piccolo cavallo filiforme"
Stamped with raised initials "M.M.". Conceived in 1951 and cast in an edition of 6. Height including base 37 cm.
Provenance
Dr Sven Paulsson, Stockholm.
Thence by descent to the present owner.
Exhibitions
Probably Gothenburg Art musem, exhibition in cooperation with Christian Faerber, January - February, 1953, cat no 3.
Probably Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet, exhibition in cooperation with Christian Faerber, Stockholm, February - March, 1953, catalogue 254, cat no 30.
Literature
F. Russoli, Marino Marini - Pitture e Disegni, Milan, 1963, pl. 1 (another cast illustrated).
A. M. Hammacher, Marino Marini, Sculpture, Painting, Drawing, London, 1970, no. 164 (another cast illustrated).
H. Read, P. Waldberg & G. di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini, Complete Works, New York, 1970, no. 274, p. 364 listed as no 1 in the owners' list, (another cast illustrated, p. 365).
C. Pirovano, Marino Marini Scultore, Milan, 1972, no. 280 (another cast illustrated).
M. Meneguzzo, Marino Marini, Cavalli e Cavalieri, Milan, 1997, no. 56, p. 219 (another cast incorrectly illustrated as no. 57) Fondazione Marino Marini, ed., Marino Marini, Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures, Milan, 1998, no. 365, p. 255 (another cast illustrated).
More information
The work is one of a small number of sculptures that Marino Marini conceived in 1951 featuring calligraphic, wire-like forms. The figure of the horse is Marini's most famous and precious motif. He used the horse, and man's relationship to it, as a means of exploring his anxieties and feelings about the human condition in the post-war era, where technology had brought an end to the interdependence that had formerly meant that riders were essentially an everyday sight in much of Europe and the United States. In Piccolo cavallo filiforme, Marini has paid tribute to the loss of that ancient bond, invoking it through an expressionistic style that is at once highly modern and yet timeless.