CARLO CARRA' Quargnento 1881 - Milan 1966 Mother and Child, 1917 Mixed media on paper applied to canvas, 68 x 46.5 cm Signed and dated lower left Authentication on photograph by Prof. Massimo Carrà The image of this work was used for the lithograph of the same name published by Galleria del Cavallino in 1952, Venice In the 1910s, Carlo Carrà abandoned the dynamic emphasis of Futurism to embrace the enigmatic suspension of metaphysical painting. His meeting with Giorgio de Chirico in Ferrara in 1917 represents not only a significant biographical moment, but the origin of a brief but intense creative season in which Carrà helped define the fundamental traits of metaphysical aesthetics. In this period, Carrà developed a pictorial language that, although inspired by de Chirico's dreamlike visions, was distinguished by a greater compositional solidity, a marked plasticity of form and a strong constructive rigour. Carrà moves towards a volumetric simplification, where each element appears isolated, immersed in a cold, uniform light that cancels time and erases narrative. Compared to de Chirico, Carrà seeks in metaphysics a new order, an antidote to the instability of the present and the chaos of Futurism that has just been abandoned. Ultimately, Carrà seeks to construct spaces of the soul in which every form becomes thought, and every silence speaks. "Mother and Child" is one of the most emblematic works of Carlo Carrà's metaphysical period, created in 1917 during his stay in Ferrara, at the height of his collaboration and intellectual dialogue with Giorgio de Chirico. The work represents a central moment in the artist's brief but intense metaphysical phase. In Mother and Child , Carrà does not depict a realistic or narrative scene, but a motionless and suspended composition, dominated by two figures resembling mannequins or statues, placed within a closed, almost theatrical architectural space. The mother appears monumental, with geometric and inexpressive features, resembling a sculpture or archaic idol. The son is a smaller figure, also reduced to a stylised and mute form, almost a simulacrum. The architectural background contributes to the feeling of immobility and estrangement. The cold, uniform light abolishes any atmospheric or emotional effect: everything is still, silent, timeless. Provenance: Naviglio Art Gallery, Milan Galleria del Cavallino, Venice Renato Cardazzo Collection, Milan Naviglio Art Gallery, Milan Sotheby's auction, 24 June 1996, London, lot 68 (bought there by the present owner) Private Collection Exhibitions: Homage to Metaphysical Art with Works by Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà, Galleria d'Arte del Navaglio, Milan, 1952 Kunst Museum, Winterthur, Rot konstruiert und Super Table, Eine Schweizer Sammlung moderner Kunst, Switzerland, 1980, ill. cat.