Untitled composition, oil on paper/board by Marcello Fantoni, 1986

Original oil on paper/board by Marcello Fantoni (1915–2011), signed and dated Fantoni 1986 lower right, and again upper left. A vivid post-Cubist composition in which stylised figurative elements — a bird-like head at the upper left, a profile head with a red bodice to the right, recurring heart and lozenge shapes — emerge from a fractured grid of bold colour passages bound by strong black contour lines. The treatment consciously echoes the sgraffito vocabulary of Fantoni’s celebrated ceramics, where painted glazes were scratched through to a contrasting layer to produce the same Picasso- and Braque-derived line. Best known as a ceramicist, Fantoni trained also as a sculptor and figurative draughtsman in Florence under Libero Andreotti and Gianni Vagnetti; his works on paper are held in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi and appear on the market far less often than his ceramics. Acquired directly from the artist’s family. Presented behind Artglass AR70 anti-reflective museum glass in a contemporary black moulding. Italy, 1986.