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Eclisse, 1976

GPO-0320

Eclipse

Pencil on primed canvas, reversed canvas

160 x 240 cm

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Acquired in 1976, inventory no. 2919

In the room drawn in perspective on a primed canvas – with two “paintings” on the side walls – a reversed canvas simulates the painting situated on the fourth wall of that hypothetical room. Akin to an eclipse, in which a star is hidden from sight by the interposition of a celestial body, the overturned canvas subtracts the painting hypothetically hung on the wall at the back of the drawn room from the viewer’s gaze.
The work is a larger replica of the version realized in 1975 (GPO-0311). The same theme was formulated in two other variants made during the same year (GPO-0336, GPO-0342).

1977-78 Rotterdam, Museum Boymansvan Beuningen, Schijnbare tegenstellingen. Zestien Italiaanse Kunstenaars, 10 December 1977 - 15 January 1978, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 36 (erroneously dated “1975”), not repr.
M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 320 p. 329, col. repr.
Entry by Maddalena Disch, 07/05/2026