(Novara 1883–1963 Turin)
Ragazza seduta (con la mano sul cuore), 1938, signed, oil on canvas, 65.5 x 55.5 cm, framed

This work is registered in the Archivio Felice Casorati, under no. 1374 and it is accompanied by a photo-certificate (issued 21 January 2010).

Provenance:
Sergio Colongo Collection, Biella
acquired from the above by the present owner in the second half of the 1950’s

Literature:
G. Bertolino, F. Poli, Felice Casorati. Catalogo generale. I dipinti (1904–1963), Vol II, Turin 2004, no. 640 with ill.

This portrait was executed while Felice Casorati lived in Turin, the city where he had moved to almost 20 years earlier. Turin, compared to Venice, Milan, and Naples, towns where he had previously lived, was from the cultural point of view a lively place but as far as figurative art was concerned it seemed provincial. From the Twenties on Felice Casorati, surrounded by Turin’s spiritual and melancholic atmosphere and feeling more comfortable in his artistic career – as he had fewer competitors – seemed to have found his hometown.
“I live in Turin (…) in this non touristy city, that I love for its mysteriousness, and its veiled beauty, in this place as enigmatic and disturbing as a cabala that needs to be unveiled every single day, where the fog shines more than the sun and the sense of dimension is primary, only in this multiple squared city my paintings could be conceived.” (Felice Casorati, Catalogue Raisonné, p. 42).
In the 1930s Casorati whose artistic career was settled (he had participated to various editions of national and international exhibitions, he had been invited to the Venice Biennial over six times, etc.) seemed to have found a new sense of peace mainly thanks to his marriage to the British artist Daphne Maugham and the birth of their son Francesco. Together they would spend a lot of time in the country where they had a house.
“(…) Through episodes of pain and joy ignorance and knowledge victories and mistakes and mainly through my art I was slowly reaching a human maturity. From that moment on my work became more peaceful (…) I was gaining further faith in myself.” (Felice Casorati, Catalogue Raisonné, p.84).
Executed in 1938 Ragazza seduta depicts a young woman sitting down and placing her hand on the heart. In many of Casorati’s portraits the hands play an important role expressing the subject’s state of mind. This work clearly reflects the artist’s peaceful human and artistic phase through the use of pastel colors that characterize his work during these years as well as the dreamy and relaxed expression of the subject portrayed.