Cow with calf

The nurse looks imperturbably ahead while the calf, with its head lowered under its mother, stretches to nurse. It is a form which, despite the sentimental effect and in any case in the traditional iconography, obliges the sculptor to create two distinct forms united in a single compositional architecture, not easy to execute, all the more so because Ligabue had no notion of fusion lost wax and therefore could not predict how the work, once reproduced in bronze, would hold up to the different technique. The different execution of the two animals is interesting: the calf built with nervous, impressionistic touches that render the vivacity of its nature, and the mother, on the other hand, solid and compact in shape. It is a really impressive group.