Galleria Barbaroux, Milan
Galleria Rotta, Geneva (by 1976)
Visconte Franco Marmont du Haut Champ, Milan
Thence by descent to the present owner

Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico (ed.), Giorgio de Chirico. Catalogo Generale - Opere dal 1910 al 1975, Rome, 2015, vol. II, no. 487, illustrated p. 67

The canvas is not lined. There is a very milky varnish preventing UV light from fully penetrating. However, UV examination does reveal small areas of retouching to the sky relating to pigment flaking, some very old small retouchings around the rightmost horse's eye and a few further spots of retouching in places predominantly away from the cavalli. There are scattered stable lines of craquelure and the canvas is slightly undulating. This work is in overall good condition and would benefit from a clean.
"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."

Ever since his early childhood in Volos, Greece, Giorgio de Chirico was surrounded by images of the antique world. De Chirico's Italian parents had moved abroad for his father’s work as an engineer, a profession that was to deeply influence his son’s style in the years to come. Classical mythology, history and architecture provided another endless source of inspiration and de Chirico regularly combined such subjects with contemporary settings and anecdotes. His painterly style owes a lot to the baroque and de Chirico spent much of his adolescence wandering through museums and studying the great Italian artistic traditions.

Painted in 1929, Cavalli antichi is a splendid early example of the subject of horses on the beach, which was to become one of the most iconic mythological subjects in De Chirico’s œuvre. He would return to this theme on a frequent basis during the following decades, surrounding his equine figures wi🐠th antique ruins and classical human figures. In the 1920s de Chirico abandoned his early surrealist style, which had a great influence on the group of artists gathered around André Breton, and in turning to the classical world as a new source of inspiration, he embraced the avant-garde trend led by Pablo Picasso’s neo-classical period.

Within Cavalli antichi the artist creates an enigmatic world by placing the two horses in the midst of a traditional timeless landscape, verging between fantasy and realism and transcending narrative imagery. Jean Cocteau said that ‘de Chirico, born in Greece, no longer needs to paint Pegasus. A horse by the sea - with its colour, its eyes and its mouth - assumes the significance of myth’ (Jean Cocteau, 1928, quoted in Giorgio Ruggeri  (ed.), Pictor Optimus Pinxit, Bologna, 1979, p.38, translated from Italian).