Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Associazione per il patrocinio e la promozione della figura e dell'opera di Mario Sironi.

Provenance
Cesare Tosi Collection, Milan (probably acquired directly from the artist).
Galleria d'Arte del Naviglio, Milan, no. 2736.
Galleria d'Arte Narciso, Turin.
Galleria d'Arte Cairola, Milan.
Private collection; their sale, Farsetti, Prato, 28 November 1998, lot 440.
Private collection, Florence.
Private collection, Milan (acquired in 2015).


The present work was once owned by Cesare Tosi, a famous Milanese tailor who was renowned for his striking male attire and its elegant silhouettes. Mario Sironi, his close friend and collaborator, famously dubbed him the 'architetto umano' - the architect of the human body. This grand moniker, infused with the Futurist mindset of 1950s Italy, emphasised how Tosi's precise cuts served to refine and adorn the structure of the male form. The logo Sironi designed in accompaniment could not have been more fitting: an abstracted marionette with scissors and cut lines, which echoes the works of Giorgio de Chirico and Fernand Léger.

Tosi and his studio-cum-salon thereby formed an important chapter in Milan's intertwined histories of fashion and art. In addition to Umberto II of Savoy, the last King of Italy, Tosi's clients included a rich array of prominent Italian Modernists. Giorgio Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico, Giacomo Balla, Felice Casorati and Umberto Boccioni were among this cohort. Within this milieu, the tailor cultivated a great passion for art and assembled a critically renowned collection of Modern works. It appears no coincidence that the figures in Sironi's painting, Due figure, are dressed in an elegant 1950s style. Serendipitously, the man's sleek, double-breasted suit reflects the tastes of the work's captivating former owner, who was a significant Modern artist in his own right.