L'Impero

After having completed the mosaic titled L'Italia corporativa, of which the Worker, here exhibited, is a preparatory study, Sironi set to work on the decorations for the Casa Madre dei Mutilati on Piazza Adriana in Rome, and The Empire is one of the preparatory studies. The iconographic programme of the frescoes, commissioned by Carlo Delcroix, president of the organization for war invalids, and completed in 1938, featured two figures on horseback, portraits of the king and Mussolini, juxtaposed on opposite walls of the Shrine. The monumental standing female figure, forming part of the decoration of the wall with the equestrian monument to the king, represents the Italian Empire. It is delineated with a certain economy of abbreviated strokes and marked use of chiaroscuro for the deep folds of the drapery. (Transl. by Paul Metcalfe per Scriptum, Roma, edited by Michela de Riso)