View of Montagnola, Bologna | Veduta della montagnola di Bologna
MORANDI, Giorgio (1890-1964)

GIORGIO MORANDI 1890-1964
Bologna 1890-1964 (Italian)

Title: View of Montagnola, Bologna | Veduta della montagnola di Bologna, ca. 1932

Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered Etching on Card

Paper size: 33 x 49 cm. / 12.9 x 19.3 in.
Image size: 21 x 33 cm. / 8.3 x 12.9 in.

Additional Information: This original etching is hand signed in pencil by the artist “Morandi” at the lower right margin.
It is also hand numbered in pencil from the edition of 50, at the lower left margin.
It is additionally signed and dated in the lower right image “Morandi 1932”.
It was printed in a limited edition of 50 signed and numbered impressions and published by Calcografia Nazionale, Rome.
This is the first state (of two) before the addition of the number. There was no edition of the second state.

Note: Giorgio Morandi is one of the greatest Still Life artists of the 20th century. With exhaustive attention to tone, light, and compositional balance, he repeatedly depicted bottles, vases and objects from his studio in Bologna. Also, a professor of engraving and etching at Bologna Academy 1930-56, he was a master of the technique of engraving. He realised 133 etchings in his lifetime.
Morandi defines his objects entirely through their tone, using a texture of lines woven like linen, reflecting the weave of the printed paper, to darken certain areas. In Veduta della Montagnola di Bologna (View of the Montagnola in Bologna, 1932), these textures become more abstracted, largely uniform fields of pattern—a dense but even hatchwork of diagonal, vertical, and horizontal lines for a field in shadow, a more open pattern for areas in sun.

Another impression of this etching is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Literature: Vitali, L. (1989). L’opera Grafica di Giorgio Morandi. Turin: Einaudi.
Reference: Vitali 93

Condition: Very good condition. The paper slightly toned.