(Pistoia 1901–1980 Viareggio)
Piccolo Miracolo, 1955–56, monogrammed M. M., bronze, 45 x 44.2 x 14.4 cm, Edition of 7 examples (4 with legs, 3 without legs)

Of the three examples without legs, this is the unique piece coming from a private collection: the remaining 2 pieces are at Fondazione Marino Marini, Pistoia, and at the Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota-City

The work was registered in the Fondazione Marino Marini, 5 July 1995, ref.-no. 63

Provenance:
Marina Marini Collection
G. Cecchi Collection, Ripa di Servavezza
Galleria dello Scudo, Verona (certificate available, 1995)
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Venice, Marino Marini-Sculture pitture disegni dal 1914 al 1977, Palazzo Grassi, 28 May-15 August 1983, exh. cat. p. 145, no. 91, another example exhibited
Ascona, Marino Marini, Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna,3 September-29 October 1989, another example exhibited
Bologna, Marino Marini, Forni Galleria d’Arte, October 1990 exh. cat. p. 51, another example exhibited
Rome, Marino Marini-Antologica 1919–1978, Villa Medici, 7 March-19 May 1991, exh. cat. p. 100, another example exhibited
Paris, Marino Marini, Galerie Philip, October-December 1993, exh. cat. no. 7, another example exhibited
Verona, Marino Marini. Mitografia-sculture e dipinti 1939–1966, 11 December 1994 – 12 February 1995, exh. cat. p. 93, no. 25, another example exhibited
Tokyo, Marino Marini, Station Gallery, 22 November 1997 – 25 January 1998, exh. cat. p. 39, no. 17, another example exhibited

Literature:
P. Waldberg, H. Read, G. di San Lazzaro, Marino Marini Complete works, New York 1970, p. 373, no. 333, another example ill.
C. Pirovano, Marino Marini, Scultore, Milan 1972, no. 339, another example ill.
M. P. Garberi, Marino Marini alla Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano, ed. Comune di Milano, Milan 1973, no. 29, another example ill.
M. P. Garberi, Marino Marini alla Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano, A. Mondadori (ed.), Milan 1984, p. 163, no. 31, another example ill.
M. Meneguzzo, Marino Marini-Cavalli e Cavalieri, Skira (ed.), Milan 1997, p. 226, no. 85, another example ill.
M. Meneguzzo, Marino Marini-Il Museo alla Villa Reale di Milano, Skira (ed.), Milan 1997, no. 29, another example ill.
Fondazione Marino Marini (ed.), Marino Marini, Catalogue raisonné of the Sculptures, Milan 1998, p. 288, no. 414, another example ill.

“Why always horses and horsemen? It is my way of changing history. Equestrian images are the medium I need to give human passion a form. I can’t explain better than this, it is a higher intuition.”

From the Rampin Horseman to Marcus Aurelius, from Gattamelata to Bartolomeo Colleoni, from David’s Napoleon astride a rearing horse to dynamic-futuristic steeds, the history of art is marked by an inexhaustible series of horses and riders. This iconography is of major importance in the modern as well as the classical era, both in terms of its commemorative function as well as its propaganda value. Not so for Marino Marini (Pistoia, 1901 – Viareggio, 1980) who, struck by the view of the equestrian statue of Henry II in Bamberg Cathedral, conceives of the rider as a tragic figure, an archetype of reality, a structure open to every development.

[…] Anti-classical and primordial, Marini’s interpretation of the rider – which is the emblem of his work, defining and characterising as it does his whole artistic career and various phases – draws on Etruscan sculpture for the iconographic rendition of the subject in an expressionist style. Whilst before World War II formal purity and classicism lend themselves to a naturalist interpretation, his subsequent works are characterised by volumes of broken lines and an ever-rising tension between horse and rider. Deformation, simplification, and synthesis are now the main features that evoke the drama and precarity of an existence ravaged by pain.

By discarding every traditional compositional structure, the artist creates an image of the rider who gradually becomes one with the horse, losing his power when the contrast is lost. Thus, at the end of the 1940s, Marini’s rider becomes more rigid, unable to dominate his mount, to the point of spreading out his arms in a desperate gesture of surrender, and in the 1950s assumes an unprecedented pathos. It symbolises the inevitable fall of humanity before its inauspicious destiny: eventually, he topples from the horse as it falls to the ground. This is the moment of human tragedy. A tragedy capable of bending man, who refuses to surrender, to the point of decomposing him, transforming into a lifeless fossil that which once upon a time represented the myth of man, heroic and victorious, the virtuous man of the humanists.

from: Roberta Vanali, Cavalli e cavalieri che fecero l’impresa, published in “Artribune”, 22 January 2013 on the occasion of the exhibition “Marino Marini. Cavalli e Cavalieri” held at Museo Man, Nuoro, 14 December 2012 – 24 February 2013