Female Nude, Rome at the Time of the Return to Order. ca 1930

Female Nude, Rome at the Time of the Return to Order. ca 1930

Oil on thick cardboard, 29 × 24 cm

Frame: 37 × 31 cm

The female figure, with accentuated volumes and sculptural forms, is deliberately monumental. The body, solid and frontal, appears carved from the pictorial matter: not idealized, but rendered with an archaic and almost severe plastic strength, in a tension between painting and sculpture. This formal language reflects the Roman aesthetic of the 1930s, positioned between modernized realism and Mediterranean classicism.

Under Mussolini, Rome became a centre for a renewed artistic identity grounded in order, clarity, and formal discipline. This nude, stripped of narrative context, embodies that vision—still, composed, and intentionally remote from emotional excess—shared by many artists close to the Valori Plastici group.

Painted on very thick cardboard, with a back covered in modern velvet. The current frame, in black wood with a gilt profile, is not original and may have originally been entirely gilded.

Unsigned.

Condition: good, with fine craquelure, minor abrasions, and a few small retouches in the background.