Winter 2023

Angel of the Hearth?
The stairwell of the Banca d’Italia building is
impressive to say the least – an imposing
upward-moving swirl of marble that rises
slowly, like the triumphant notes of an Italian
march for unification. The Black Angel at the
foot of the stairs stands out as a small but
striking contrast to this otherwise stone-white
world. “We chose to begin the Towards
Modernity exhibition with this wonderful
example of the Ritorno all’ordine movement,”
says exhibition co-curator Anna Villari. “By the
1920s, artists in Italy were already responding to
what they considered the destruction of
figurative art by the avant-garde currents,
and were calling for a return to the human
figure, which was cleaner and sharper than in
previous decades, as with The Black Angel.”
In 1922, Polish sculptor Maryla Lednicka-
Szczytt – who eventually made her living
carving decorative figureheads for the bow of
cruise ships – debuted in Paris during the city’s
heyday, and while there, she worked
with designer Adrienne Gorska, whose more
famous sister is Tamara de Lempicka.
Following Lednicka-Szczytt’s move to Italy and
her solo exhibition in Milan, in 1926, she was
highly acclaimed by critics and collectors. The
Black Angel was purchased by entrepreneur
Riccardo Gualino, whose enviable collection was
later acquired by the Banca d’Italia.
Lednicka-Szczytt’s sculpture is thought to be
a nod to the ballet Les Sylphides, which was
performed in 1909 by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes,
featuring Chopin’s music. While in Italy, the
artist frequented the ‘Novecento Group’, brought
together by art critic Margherita Sarfatti, one of
Mussolini’s lovers. A supporter of the Fascist
Regime, Sarfatti was a friend to artists seeking
what she called “modern classicism”. [Incidentally,
Sarfatti – as a woman of Jewish ancestry – was
later a victim of Mussolini’s 1939 Racial Laws and
forced to flee to the United States. Her passage
out of Italy was not blocked by government
officials]. Despite Maryla Lednicka-Szczytt’s
popularity between the two world wars, the
sculptor met a regrettable end. After fruitlessly
pursuing her art in New York in the early 1940s,
she sank into poverty and oblivion. Unable to
26 Restoration Conversations • Winter 2023