(Bergamo 1908–1991 Rome)
Crocefissione, 1969, signed Manzù, inside the foundry mark of MAF, Milan, bronze, low-relief, brown patina, 72 x 51.5 x 1 cm (mounted inside a wood frame)

Photo certificate:
Fondazione Giacomo Manzù, Ardea, archive no. 2/2017, signed by Inge Manzù

Provenance:
Artist’s atelier, Ardea, Rome, there acquired by the present owner around 1969 and thence by inheritance
Private Collection, Italy

Comparative Literature:
J. Rewald, Giacomo Manzù, Thames & Hudson, London, 1967, the same subject illustrated at p. 63 among the other “Variaton on a Theme”

On 1 July 1947 the Vatican announced an international competition for a portal of St. Peter’s. Manzù decided to participate, among other twelve Artists. Five years later, in 1952, Manzù received the official commission for the new portal dedicated to the “Triumph of the Saints and Martyrs of the Church”.Manzù moved from Milan to Rome to work on the project but decided to change the general theme of the work with a special permission from Pope John XXIII; The new theme became “The Portal of Death”. On his monography on Manzù oeuvre work , John Rewald describes these works as follow:
“After he had completed the doors of St. Peter’s (inaugurated on June 28th by the new Pope Paul VI) Manzù began to work on a project which he had contemplated for many years. It was a development of his group of 1939 “Cristo nella nostra Umanità”, and he gave the new series the title “Variations on a theme”. In it he returned to motifs on which he had first worked a quarter of a century ago as well as developing some completely new compositions. The subject of self sacrifice is, after all, the same as for the Vatican doors. Often flung casually onto an unframed rectangle with irregular edges which resemble handmade paper, these representations combine a graphic and even sketchy technique with masterly modelling. As a result of his varied treatment of the flat areas, these reliefs contain penetrating proof of Manzù understanding of human suffering and of resignation and brutality. Accompanying his compassion are the recurring familiar figures of earlier works: the mourning women, the fettered and hanged partisans, the indifferent cardinals and the cynical soldiers. Manzù, true to himself as always, once again combined typical directness of expression with an extraordinary intensity of feeling”