Executed in 1970, Due cavalli in riva al mare is an evocative rendering of among the most enduring subjects of Giorgio de Chirico’s oeuvre. Containing a pair of magisterial horses situated within a mysterious, ancient seascape, the present work encapsulates the artist’s desire to approach painting through a classical language steeped in tradition to invoke a simultaneous sense of that which is both unknown and familiar.

De Chirico established himself with his extraordinary Metaphysical paintings of the 1910s, whose uncanny, enigmatic scenes comprising architectural motifs, city squares and inanimate objects attempted to undermine the perceived realities of the everyday and would assert tremendous influence on the development of Surrealist theories and aesthetics that flourished in the following decades. In the 1920s, however, de Chirico declared a new allegiance, turning to the classical world as a dominant source of inspiration. Although this aesthetic shift aligned with the prevailing rappel à l'ordre, the embrace of human figuration and classical referents among avant-garde artists in the wake of World War I, ancient mythology, history and architecture also held a personal significance to the artist: born in Volos, Greece, to Italian parents, de Chirico was surrounded by such imagery beginning in early childhood. James Thrall Soby further elaborates upon three factors underlying the artist’s classicist engagement: "The first of these was his absorption in the art of the past, stimulated by his postwar studies in the great museums of Rome and Florence and by his discussions with Nicola Lochoff. The second may well have been his regard for Picasso who, beginning in 1917, had alternately painted classical-realistic pictures and abstract works. Picasso's neo-classic paintings and drawings undoubtedly were known to de Chirico [...]. A third factor, accounting in good part for de Chirico's 1925-28 paintings of ancient ruins, gladiators and wild horses, was his enthusiasm for Sir James George Frazer's travel account of classical Greece, published in French in 1923 as Sur les Traces de Pausanias" (James Thrall Soby, Giorgio de Chirico, New York, 1966, p. 162).

During this period, depictions of horses amidst antique ruins on a beach arose as a primary preoccupation of the artist, who explored the theme in myriad iterations. The horse held symbolic associations with both the sea and ancient myth for de Chirico: “I think again of the enigma of the horse in its essence of a sea god,” the artist wrote in 1911-13, “I once imagined, in the darkness of a temple rising on the seashore, the prophetic talking charger which the god of the sea presented to King Argus. I imagined it carved in marble, pure and limpid as a diamond, crouched on its hing legs like a sphinx, with all the enigma and the infinite nostalgia of the waves in its eyes and in the movement of its white neck” (quoted in Exh. Cat., New York, Borghi & Co., Giorgio de Chirico, 1920-1950, 1990-91, p. 7). Despite articulating a new artistic impetus, this body of work maintained both the distinctive visual lexicon that characterized de Chirico’s earlier works and the Metaphysical spirit of existing in their own place and t.mes .

Conspicuously devoid of human presence, the composition of Due cavalli in riva al mare –initially conceived in the 1930s–is populated with a pair of steeds whose statuesque poise is suggestive of classical equestrian sculpture. Triumphantly rearing and adorned with a scarlet caparison that dramatically blows in the wind, these animals are endowed with the majestic aura of mythic creatures, mirroring the artist’s fascination with the ancient world. The ambiguous and t.mes less nature of the stormy Aegean landscape, heightened by the solitary columnar drums that surround the horses, generate the air of near-tangible disquietude present in de Chirico’s most accomplished works.

The present version of Due cavalli in riva al mare emerges from the reflective depths of de Chirico’s later years, when, with a postmodern sensitivity, he began revisiting the iconic images of his early career. In this context, the present work serves to propagate the artist’s notion that the idea expressed in an artwork could transcend the original object itself, and that that idea, viewed from an alternative vantage point, can even take on disparate dimensions. The artist during this period approached his prior imagery with a heightened boldness of palette and strength of contrasts, which augments the dreamlike character of the present work. In merging the past and the present and the mythological with the symbolic, Due cavalli in riva al mare affirms de Chirico’s singular mastery of enigma and mystery. As the artist himself commented, "[My art is a] frightening astuteness, it returns from beyond unexplored horizons to fix itself in metaphysical eternity, in the terrible solitude of an inexplicable lyricism..." (quoted in Paolo Baldacci, De Chirico, The Metaphysical Period 1888-1919, Milan, 1997, p. 326).