VITTORIO ZECCHIN

(1878-1947)

Matrone

Footnotes

We thank Marino Barovier for his assistance in cataloguing this work.

Provenance
Natale Casadio Collection, Bergamo.
Ing. Devoti Collection.
Elena Castelbarco Collection (gifted from the above, 1943).
Private collection, Italy.

'Vittorio Zecchin, one of the most exquisite artists in Italy today' – Roberto Papini in Emporium, 1923

An influential painter, tapestry maker, furniture and glass designer, Vittorio Zecchin was considered by many as Italy's first truly Modern glass artist and a key figure in the conversation between avant-garde influenced artists and designers in Italy.

In the early 1900s Zecchin began to immerse himself in the prevailing artistic trends of Europe and his proximity to the Venice Biennale allowed for an even fuller exposure to these movements. In 1905 he was struck by an exhibition of the Symbolist Jan Toorop and in 1910 he discovered the work of an artist who would prove one of the most influential to his own artistic practice, the Austrian Secessionist Gustav Klimt. That year Klimt had exhibited at the Wiener Werkstätte, he was present at the show and exhibited his works in a room to himself, a room that had a profound effect on Zecchin. Alongside these great, established influences, Zecchin threw himself into his career with other young emerging artists, most notably Umberto Boccioni, Amedeo Modigliani and Teodoro Wolf Ferrari.

Through the stylised, symmetrical, gold-trimmed figures we clearly see the influence that Klimt's work had on the impressionable artist. The flat planes, perspective-altering patterns and lack of clear figural outlines in Zecchin's figures are reminiscent of Klimt's portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer I, where the gilded background and patterned figure distorts the creation of realistic space and shadow. Meanwhile, the elegant, elongated faces of the present work with its exaggerated eyes and noses are a clear link to the iconic, surreal visages of Modigliani.

Matrone bears great resemblance to a pencil study of the same name held in the collection of the Ca' Pesaro, in Venice. Referencing similar motifs, both works could have well been studies for the silk tapestry of a similar size, Tre teste di donne (Cupole), that was created in Zecchin's Murano workshop and exhibited at Ca' Pesaro in 1919.