Portrait of Maria Savinio

Alberto Savinio (1891-1952)
1931, Oil on canvas

A passionate theorist of metaphysical painting in the pages of the magazine Valori Plastici and already an established writer and musician, Alberto Savinio (whose real name was Andrea De Chirico, Giorgio's younger brother) had met his future wife in 1925, the year in which he was called upon to collaborate with the newly founded Teatro dell'Arte, directed by Luigi Pirandello, in the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome. The theatre actress Maria Morino, then 26 years old, had just returned from a tour in the United States alongside Eleonora Duse and was about to leave again with Pirandello’s troupe. On her return to Rome, she decided to leave the stage for good and married Savinio in 1926. This painting was executed in 1931, when Maria Morino, having abandoned the role of promising Italian theatre actress, had taken on the more distinguished and calmer role of wife and mother.