This sculpture was presented by the Italian community in Monaco to Prince Rainier III, as a gift to mark the 50th anniversary of his reign, in 1999. It represents a group of four stylised figures, kneeling in a line, holding one other by the shoulder. The horizontally intertwined figures form a grac...
This sculpture was presented by the Italian community in Monaco to Prince Rainier III, as a gift to mark the 50th anniversary of his reign, in 1999. It represents a group of four stylised figures, kneeling in a line, holding one other by the shoulder. The horizontally intertwined figures form a graceful ensemble that evokes a feeling of athletic joyfulness. The brilliant bronze, the spherical shape of the heads, hands, and feet are hallmarks of Sauro Cavallini’s work. This smaller-scale piece can be compared with Cavallini’s far larger Monument to Peace, which stands outside the Congress Centre in Florence. Another of the artist’s sculptures, Passo a Due, can be admired on Monaco’s Sculpture Trail.
Sauro Cavallini was an Italian sculptor, born in 1927 in La Spezia. A self-taught artist, he devoted himself to sculpture, working at his home in Fiesole, in Tuscany. He held numerous solo exhibitions in Italy, and his monumental sculptures adorn many public spaces around the country. The artist was commissioned to create monumental pieces for some highly prestigious sites, including the Monument to Peace outside the Congress Centre in Florence, and the Monument to Life at the European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg. He died in 2016 in Fiesole. His Tuscan studio was turned into a museum. In 2017, the Florence Biennale awarded him the “Lorenzo il Magnifico” prize in recognition of his lifetime achievements in memoriam. The Florentine jury paid tribute to him for “having masterfully brought bronze to life through sculpture, giving lightness and rhythm to original and harmonious figures with extremely natural yet stylized anatomies”.
