The Soothsayer's Recompense

The Soothsayer's Recompense is a 1913 painting by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico.[1][2] It is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of the permanent collection. It was accessioned in 1950 as one of the thousand items donated to the institution by Walter and Louise Arensberg.[3] The piece was created in France, through a process of "squaring-up" in which Chirico drew a version of the piece divided into nine squares, and subsequently used this draft to quickly create the fleshed-out painting.[3][4]

The Soothsayer's Recompense
ArtistGiorgio de Chirico
Year1913 (1913)
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions135.6 cm × 180 cm (53+3⁄8 in × 70+7⁄8 in)
LocationPhiladelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Accession1950-134-38

Subject matter

The piece depicts an empty city square, a recurring motif in works by Chirico.[5] It also features a locomotive in the background, another recurring motif also found in Le Rêve Transformé and Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure).

The statue at the center of the painting is meant to represent Ariadne,[2] who was the daughter of Minos, King of Crete.[6][7] She assisted Theseus in his escape from the Labyrinth, but he later abandoned her on the island of Naxos. Like the locomotive and empty square, Ariadne appears in other paintings by Chirico.

Display history

The Soothsayer's Recompense is currently owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and was first shown there in 1954.[8] It originally hung in the home of the Arensberg family, where it inspired Philip Guston to become a painter.[9] Since being accessioned by its current owner, it has been shown elsewhere, including twice at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in 2003 and again in 2014, and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 2007.[1][2][9]

References
  1. Pritchard, Claudia (4 January 2014). "Squaring the ancient and the modern: The art of Giorgio de Chirico". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  2. Dorment, Richard (22 January 2003). "Secrets and lies in the piazza". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group Limited. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  3. "The Soothsayer's Recompense". The Philadelphia Museum of Art. 1 January 2007. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  4. Gale, Matthew (1 April 1988). "The Uncertainty of the Painter: De Chirico in 1913". The Burlington Magazine. Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. 130 (1021): 268–276. JSTOR 883282.
  5. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (30 June 2014). "Giorgio de Chirico". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  6. Homer. Odyssey. 11.320.
  7. Hesiod. Theogony. 947.
  8. Kimball, Fiske (1954). "Opening of the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection. The "Modern Museum" of the Philadelphia Museum of Art". The Philadelphia Museum Bulletin. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 50 (243): 3–15. doi:10.2307/3794892. JSTOR 3794892.
  9. Allen, Tom (1 June 2007). "The Soothsayer's Recompense". X•Tra. 9 (4). Retrieved 13 March 2016.
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