(Rignano sull’Arno 1879–1964 Vittoria Apuana)
Casa a Poggio a Caiano, 1920/21, on the reverse a study for a military helmet, signed Soffici, oil on board, 51 x 65 cm, framed, (MCC)

Provenance:
Acquired from the artist in 1924/25 by the present owner and thence by the heirs
Private Collection, Italy

Exhibited:
Florence, Arte Moderna in Italia 1915–1935, Palazzo Strozzi, 1967 (label on the reverse), curated by C. L. Ragghianti, exh. cat. p. XLIV, pp. 254–255, no. 1408 with ill. (erroneously described as “oil on canvas” and dated “around 1930”)
Modena, L’invenzione del Paesaggio. Da Morandi a Schifano, Galleria Civica, 1995–96 (label on the reverse), curated by F. D’Amico and W. Guadagnini, exh. cat. p. 17, no. 26 with ill.
Rome, Cezanne e gli artisti italiani del ‘900, Complesso del Vittoriano, 2013–2014, exh. cat. p. 170 and p. 173 with ill.

“Near my house there is a canal in the middle of the fields, after which the land gradually rises until it reaches a farmer‘s house that stands out against the sky. I painted this landscape (...) between 1920 and 1921“, wrote Soffici to his collector friend who had previously bought the painting for the same Roman collection from which it comes today.
The supporting material (heavy cardboard) displays a sketch on the reverse, framed with the brush and summarily painted with tempera colours, featuring two military helmets. This sketch, which was laid down on the board that Soffici reused in 1920/21, is as yet unpublished and unknown to scholarship. It most probably dates back to 1914, when Soffici favoured an almost neo-primitive figuration stripped down to its essential elements, deriving from his Cubo-Futurist experiments during the years he spent in Paris in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Fabrizio D’Amico