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Lot Essay
Born in Trieste in 1888 – when the town and its region were still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – Attilio Selva moved to Milan and subsequently to Turin, where he became apprenticed to the renowned symbolist sculptor Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933) before settling in Rome as the recipient a prestigious Premio di Roma Rittmayer bursary grant. He was based in the capital until the 1920s where he fraternised with fellow artists and writers as part of the so-called ‘Roman School’.
The major turning point of his artistic career came in 1918, when he exhibited, together with others, at the Casina del Pincio. In the coming years, having caught the eye of Benito Mussolini, Attilio Selva became a member of the Accademia d’Italia, an initiative founded by Mussolini in 1929 to foster the development of Italian art and culture and to disseminate it across Europe.
His style appears to be largely influenced by the Croatian sculptor Mestovic, whose personal exhibition in 1911 is thought to have determined Selva’s inclination towards symbolic-allegorical figures and motifs, which are evident in Selva's works Ritmi, Velia (1914) and the present work Enigma (1919). However, following his early excursion into symbolism, he soon reverted to a more simple, classical style, for which he is now considered a key precursor of the 20th-century ‘return to order’ movement. His works may now be found in such prestigious collections as the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Florence, the Museo Civico in Turin, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.
The present model is considered an example of Selva’s vision of sculpture as a continuation of the architectural themes embedded in the human body. Inspired to the solid volume and monumentality of Michelangelo’s nudes, it achieves formal balance through a careful combination of contraposing weights, transmitting as well a powerful image of exotic, arcane femininity. A 1919 marble model of the same artwork is currently on display at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, which is believed to have been on display at the Roman Biennale in 1921. A 1919 bronze cast of the same work is part of the Guido Rossi Collection in the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan.
The major turning point of his artistic career came in 1918, when he exhibited, together with others, at the Casina del Pincio. In the coming years, having caught the eye of Benito Mussolini, Attilio Selva became a member of the Accademia d’Italia, an initiative founded by Mussolini in 1929 to foster the development of Italian art and culture and to disseminate it across Europe.
His style appears to be largely influenced by the Croatian sculptor Mestovic, whose personal exhibition in 1911 is thought to have determined Selva’s inclination towards symbolic-allegorical figures and motifs, which are evident in Selva's works Ritmi, Velia (1914) and the present work Enigma (1919). However, following his early excursion into symbolism, he soon reverted to a more simple, classical style, for which he is now considered a key precursor of the 20th-century ‘return to order’ movement. His works may now be found in such prestigious collections as the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Florence, the Museo Civico in Turin, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.
The present model is considered an example of Selva’s vision of sculpture as a continuation of the architectural themes embedded in the human body. Inspired to the solid volume and monumentality of Michelangelo’s nudes, it achieves formal balance through a careful combination of contraposing weights, transmitting as well a powerful image of exotic, arcane femininity. A 1919 marble model of the same artwork is currently on display at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, which is believed to have been on display at the Roman Biennale in 1921. A 1919 bronze cast of the same work is part of the Guido Rossi Collection in the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan.