Acquired directly from the artist by the family of the present owner in the late 1950s

Milan, Galleria d'Arte Cocorocchia, Morlotti, Guttuso, Burri: Il Luogo Costante, 1972, p. 52, illustrated

Cesare Brandi, Burri, Rome 1963, pl. 63, illustrated
Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini, Eds., Burri Contributi al Catalogo Sistematico, Città di Castello 1990, p. 144, no. 597, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is richer and deeper, with the wooden elements tending more towards a rich golden-brown in the original. The catalogue illustration fails to fully convey the rich surface texture, as well as to show the artist's frame present in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Upon very close inspection, there is a minute spot of media loss to the upper left centre. There is some light unobtrusive wear to the original artist's frame, with a few scratches and tiny chips in places. All other surface irregularities would appear to be inherent to the artist's choice of media. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

"We kno💧w🌊 of Burri, this painter who disrupted painting, that he was once a doctor...

I obtained the revelation of his work about ten years ago, in a Roman gallery where, amongst the paintings fairly poorly illustrated, my attention was drawn towards a small but most astonishing assemblage consisting of rags of various textured cloth, of the most brilliantly coordinated colours under stitches of thread and stains of I do not know which glue a little repulsive at first glance. Such an object, which combined the ravishing beauty of a flower kept in a glasshouse with the mysterious impurity of a wound slowly healing, struck me as fascinating. I had difficulty looking away. When I informed myself, I was told that the artist was a doctor, and that he lived in Rome. I was to meet him later, at a time when his singular genius was already recognized, if not in his country of origin, at least amongst the dealers, collectors and the critics who from one continent to another exchange their discov🅺eries of a new art. The sympathetic sect of the Avant Garde witnesses (which isn't ready, one hopes, to extinguish).

            Coming back to Burri, thinking about it, I am persuaded that it is in the solitary confinement of his captivity in Texas (where he was he was a War Prisoner) that he was struck by the splendor of modern decay (in Europe, ruin is almost always more aged, which puts it on another scale as far as the observer is concerned), which most probably reminded him of his experiences 🤡as a doctor. Indeed, the wounds of a recent work of man, those of industrial matter, resemble the wounds of a human body, in the same way that we have compared the large town to an immense body inhabited, or infested, by millions of macro-organisms. Let us go further: met🐎als, steel plates, plaster and cement, all kinds of wood, cloth, coating, are never as alive as when they have lost all utility for man, and when they are broken, rusty, torn up, consumed, shrunk, rotten, stained, eaten away by more pain than would have suspected the builders in their most pessimistic previsions. It is whilst escaping, either by accident or wear and tear, domestic order, that material manages to cease being inert matter, and that it acquires a vibrant luster that brings it back into the kingdom of nature, where the worker initially found it...

That the wound may also be a flower, rose or open peony, like I said, it is only one argument from Burri's work, amongst many others; but no other has made it clearer than him in the past. If we can consent that it is in the depth of the Elizabethan drama's conclusion, in part of Rembrandt's message, and that it may be the moral of the work and of the life of Caravaggio, than our man is placed in an odd light of day, that could be mortal to most of his contemporaries, the fashionable painters. It is with this in mind that I pray that we look at him, and that we choose either to admire him, to ignore him or to despise him. I have decided (as you may have already guessed) to admire him." (André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Deuxième Belvédère, Paris 1954, p. 231-235)