Italo Griselli (montescudaio, 1880 – Florence, 1958), Cockfight

Italo Griselli (Montescudaio, 1880 – Florence, 1958)

Cockfight

Dark-patina bronze, 40 x 38.5 x 25 cm

On a marble base

Italo Griselli (Montescudaio, 1880 – Florence, 1958) represents one of the most solid and technically accomplished figures in 20th-century Italian sculpture, an artist capable of creating a dialogue between the composure of classical tradition and the monumental anxieties of his time. Born in Montescudaio (Val di Cecina, province of Pisa) in 1880, he trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence under the guidance of Augusto Rivalta, but it was his long stay in Russia—which lasted over a decade until the outbreak of the October Revolution—that refined his sculptural sensibility and earned him international fame as an exceptional portraitist for the Russian aristocracy and the imperial family. Upon his return to Italy, Griselli threw himself wholeheartedly into the “Return to Order” movement, steering his art toward a monumental style that found ample expression in the major public commissions of the Fascist regime, while always maintaining a stylistic independence characterized by concise forms and a certain archaic solemnity. Among his most famous public works, the colossal Genio dello Sport (originally conceived as the Genio del Fascismo), located in front of the Palazzo degli Uffici in Rome’s EUR district, undoubtedly stands out: an athletic figure that, in the gesture of a salute, perfectly embodies the ideal of strength and balance that Griselli pursued throughout his mature years. Within the broad panorama of Italian monumental sculpture, Italo Griselli left a significant mark by helping to celebrate some of the nation’s most important figures and symbols. Within the Vittoriano complex in Rome, the colossal monument dedicated to Vittorio Emanuele II, Griselli put his technical mastery to the test by creating the statue personifying the city of Florence, placed within the imposing series of sculptures dedicated to Italy’s noble cities that decorate the base of the portico. His inseparable bond with Tuscany and its artistic tradition finds a perfect synthesis in the figure of the Arno, created for the base of the Ponte della Vittoria in Florence. In this work, Griselli interprets the river as a powerful river deity, a personification that draws on classical statuary but is rendered with a modern sensibility, where the force of the water is evoked by the vigorous musculature and the concise modeling of the stone, perfectly integrating the sculptural element into the city’s architectural and landscape fabric. Moving to the Ligurian Riviera, the artist paid homage to the first Queen of Italy with the Monument to Queen Margherita in Bordighera, inaugurated in 1939 in a picturesque location along Via Romana, overlooking the sea. Although Griselli’s fame is inextricably linked to monumental statuary and the celebration of human heroism, his animal-themed work, embodied by this bronze Rooster Fight, represents one of the most authentic, free, and technically refined strands of his entire career. This interest was not a mere stylistic exercise, but a profound exploration of the vitality of form rooted in his Florentine training, influenced by the teachings of masters such as Sirio Tofanari. For Griselli, the animal was not a mere decorative subject, but rather an organism through which to explore muscular tension, the rhythm of movement, and a plastic synthesis that often anticipated almost abstract solutions: his animals are often captured in moments of watchful stillness or imminent movement, transforming matter into pure energy and demonstrating a profound knowledge of anatomy and volume.