Private collection, Milan

Our thanks to Professor Paola Mola for the information kindly provided.

"His acquaintance as early as 1899 with Welti, the most Gothic of Böcklin's pupils, must have yielded consequences that were anything but negligible for the development of his ideology of art as a highly refined craft and of the artist as a superior craftsman; to this must be added the sculptor's particular predisposition to absorb the Expressionist suggestions coming from the Gothic tradition and from the most recent variations of contemporary German and Nordic currents (from Munch to Minne, to the Slavic side of Meštrović) by virtue of his previous and original predilections for Hellenism and Mannerism—that is to say, for the Expressionist face of Classicism—and also, as we shall see, for the entire 'anti-Florentine', Gothic, and Nordic side of the Italian Renaissance."

The work is the single and independent version of the masterpiece "Carattere fiero - Anima gentile" (Proud Character - Gentle Soul), which represents the ideal qualities of character. The homo eticus, having completed the entire path of wisdom outlined by the Trilogy, unites within himself the noble delicacy of the soul—the feminine part of the self—and the resolute pride of the animus—the masculine part. In this way, the sculpture also foreshadows the intuition of an androgynous dimension of the human being, symbolized by the two antithetical faces indissolubly linked to one another. Also of Symbolist ancestry (we might think of Klinger's polychrome sculptures, for instance) is the juxtaposition of marble and gold, whose light contrasts with the deep black of the hollow eyes.

(from "Adolfo Wildt e i suoi allievi. Fontana, Melotti, Broggini e gli altri", edited by Elena Pontiggia)

Mostre individuali dei pittori Ambrogio Alciati, Giuseppe Biasi, Aroldo Bonzagni, Guido Cinotti e dello scultore Adolfo Wildt, Galleria Pesaro, Milan, 1919.
XIII Biennale Venezia, Venice, 1922, no. 20, p. 71.
Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, Paris, 1925, pl. 28.
La scultura italiana del XX secolo, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, 2001.
Adolfo Wildt. Ein italienischer bildhauer des symbolismus, Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, March 25 - June 17, 1990.