artwork image
Image courtesy of the Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Viani Dugnani, Verbania

Portrait of Gino Modigliani (Ritratto di Gino Modigliani)

Year:

1896

Dimensions (cm):

79 x 87 x 35

Dimensions (inches):

31.10 x 34.25 x 13.78

Medium:

Sculptures

Material:

plaster

Signature:

Signed and dated on the base: Paolo Troubetzkoy 1896

Current location:

Verbania Pallanza, Museo del Paesaggio: inv. T n. 78

Description Provenance Exhibitions Bibliography

The subject of the plaster is Gino Modigliani (Florence 1862 – Milan, 1927) a scholar, essayist and friend of Troubetzkoy. Giolli (1913) reports that a small bronze cast of the present plaster was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1897. The small bronze was acclaimed by critics and poets like Primo Levi and Enrico Chavez which praised the horse for being “superbly modelled”. Additionally, Vittorio Pica (1897) noticed Troubetzkoy’s wish “to not alter reality and leave unchanged the disarmonic proportions between the figure and the animal […]”. Pica also described it as “admirably evocative”.

Paul Troubetzkoy (1866-1938), Italy, until 1938;
By descent to the heirs, Rhoda Muriel Marie Somerwell and Luigi Troubetzkoy;
Donated to the Museo del Paesaggio, 1938-1939

II Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Venezia, 1897;
Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania, 1990, n. 41

Martinelli G.,La Critica all'Esposizione di Milano, II, in "Gazzetta Letteraria" 19 May 1897, p. 40, Munaro G.A., La II Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte. Note Critiche, Venice, 1897, pp. 117;
Pica V., L'arte Mondiale a Venezia, Naples, 1897, pp. 259-261;
Seconda Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia. exh. cat., Venice, 1897;
Thovez R., L'Arte Mondiale a Venezia in "Il Corriere della Sera", 22-23 August 1897, p. 2;
L'Italico, Il Momento dell'Arte, Rome, 1898, p. 140;
Pica V., Artisti Contemporanei: Paolo Troubetzkoy in "Emporium", vol. 12, July 1900, pp. 3-19;
R. Giolli, Paul Troubetzkoy, Milan, 1913, p. 16;
S. Rebora in Paolo Troubetzkoy 1866-1938, exh. cat., Turin, 1990, p. 110-111;
Paolo Troubetzkoy, La Collezione del Museo del Paesaggio, Palazzo Viani Dugnani, Verbania, 2017, p. 76