Restorations.

Signed on the base and dedicated "Alla Sig.a Scavini con amicizia" (To Mrs Scavini with friendship).

Provenance: Elena König Scavini collection, Turin; Pietro Augusto Cassina collection, Turin; Private collection, Turin.

Perhaps one of the most iconic works of Leonardo Bistolfi's production, "Toward the light" or "The death" can be identified with a study plaster for the Abegg funerary monument in Zurich, a marble stage complex composed of two figures, "Death "and" Life ", which observes fascinated the first one from a distance: Bistolfi began working on the monument in 1912, which was then completed in 1913 and placed, as in a natural setting, in a clearing between the forest and the lake. Everything in this choral monument contributes to create that sense of mystery and inexplicable charm that is characteristic of Bistolfi's symbolist poetics: from the calculated distance between the two figures, to the representation of Death not as a tragic event, but as a rebirth (it was the artist himself who called this work several times, commonly called "Life and Death", "Towards the light", giving the title a very different meaning), everything contributes to making it a masterpiece of poetics and modernity perfectly in line with the visionary skills of Leonardo Bistolfi, who was able to shape even the immaterial space so that it could dialogue with the sculptures, thus filling them with that strength and that enigmatic and fascinating spirit that all his work emanates. The scholar Fortunato Rizzi, visiting the monument in May 1913, wrote about the figure of "Death" as follows: "[...] a mighty woman, who walks majestically, raising her eyes and her head to the sky, almost staring into the unknown, and radiated by a mysterious light. It is Death, but nothing sad or terrible in it, on the contrary it has a joyful sense diffused in its face and attitude: it is not Death, it is Rebirth ". To create the spatial tension between the two figures of the monument, Bistolfi worked extensively on the models, starting for the "Death" from the figure of the "Alpe" of the funeral monument to Giovanni Segantini in Saint-Moritz, recognizable in the features of the face and in the gait of the body, but taking this image to a subsequent level of freedom in space, which it occupies completely and with which it relates, in a tacit dialogue with "Life". Some versions of this sculpture in various materials are known, including the large plaster preserved at the Gipsoteca Bistolfi in Casale Monferrato (inv. n° S70a) as well as a series of bronze busts (one at the Leone Museum in Vercelli, another at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan), in marble (Casa Toscanini, Parma) and plaster (at the Wolfsoniana in Genoa, inv. 87.1111.6.1) and a bronze model of reduced dimensions and very close to our plaster (80 x 28 x 30 cm), already attested in a private collection in Casale Monferrato. Our work is dedicated on the base to "Mrs. Scavini", who is Elena König Scavini, founder in 1919, together with her husband Enrico Scavini, of the then famous company of ceramics and cloth dolls "Lenci" of Turin (name derived from the nickname of the founder and the acronym "Ludus Est Nobis Constanter Industria"): the gift of this figure by Bistolfi to Elena König Scavini is particularly suggestive, since it was the death of the eldest daughter Gherda, in 1917, that pushed Scavini to undertake the creation of the Lenci dolls, soon famous all over the world, in an act of artistic creativity that brought with it the strength of lost affection. It is not known when the work was donated (although a date between 1915, the year of Elena König's marriage to Enrico Scavini, and 1917 is conceivable), but certainly the connection between the sculpture and Mrs Scavini seems to fully express the profound meaning of this image, a "Death" which is not the end of everything, but which rises "Towards the light", a figure, to use Bistolfi's words, "[...] much more beautiful than Life , less fragile, more luminous. [...] and mute statue would perhaps be the image of Life without that imperious enigma that dazzles her".

Comparative literature: R. Bossaglia, "Bistolfi", Rome 1981, n° 29.
R. Bossaglia and S. Berresford (edited by), "Bistolfi 1859-1863, il percorso di uno scultore simbolista", Casale Monferrato 1984, pp. 117-118 e p. 240;
G. Mazza (edited by), "La Gipsoteca Leonardo Bistolfi. Catalogo delle opere esposte", Casale Monferrato 2001 (reprinted in 2013).