Stanza del Liocorno, 1986-87
GPO-0590
Room of the Unicorn
Oil-painted canvas, stage costume, plexiglas case
Plexiglas case 65 x 52 x 52 cm
MUDAAC Musée départemental d'art ancien et contemporain, Épinal
Acquired in 1988, inventory no. 88-2-1
The plexiglas case holds a painted canvas representing the background of Raphael's Dama dell'Unicorno (1505-07), while lying across the top of the case is a theatre costume in a greenish hue that drops down to the floor, as if to evoke an abandoned stage curtain, in harmony with the atmosphere of the uninhabited backdrop.
The mise-en-scène of a potential painting, the Stanza del Liocorno offers the scenic scaffolding that is needed to imagine the subject that is announced.
The work is part of a group of three variants made between 1986 and 1987 (GPO-0583, GPO-0584, GPO-0590), followed in 2005 by a fourth version (GPO-0907). The works are distinguished by the different object that each time is related to the framing of the sixteenth-century arcade.
Raffaello Sanzio, Dama con Liocorno, 1505-07, canvas mounted on wood, 67 x 56 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
| 1994 | Moscow, TSDKH - Maison Centrale des Artistes, Le saut dans le vide, 18 May - 19 June, no catalogue. |
| 2003 | Epinal, Musée départemental d’art ancien et contemporain, 20 ans d’acquisition d’art contemporain avec l’aide du FRAM, 4 May - 18 August, not repr. |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 141. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 590 p. 604, repr. |
