Paris – Conceived in 1956–1957, Cavallo e cavaliere, a monumental bronze by the Italian sculptor Marino Marini measuring over 8 feet high and coming from the distinguished Shell Collection, will headline the Impressionist and Modern Art auction at Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr on Wednesday, 3 June 2026. The work is estimated at €1,300,000–2,000,000.
The sale also includes paintings and sculptures by French artists including François Pompon, Rembrandt Bugatti, Aristide Maillol, Moïse Kisling, Jacques Lipchitz, Albert Marquet, Jean Metzinger and Léopold Survage.
Emilie Millon, International Director of the Impressionist and Modern department at Bonhams, commented: "More than half a century after its creation, Marino Marini's powerful symbolism of horse and rider retains an extraordinary contemporary resonance. The unstable figure of the rider, suspended between control and collapse, continues to embody the existential anxieties of modern humanity and the fragile relationship between man, nature, and the forces that surpass him. Through its monumental presence and enduring emotional intensity, Cavallo e Cavaliere remains a timeless reflection on vulnerability, tension, and the human condition."
Marino Marini transformed the traditional image of the horse and rider into a powerful symbol of the fragility and instability of the modern human condition. While early works presented horse and rider in harmonious balance, the trauma of the Second World War led Marini to depict a fractured relationship marked by tension, vulnerability, and loss of control. In his own words, the motif contained "the entire history of humanity."
In Cavallo e Cavaliere, this vision reaches monumental intensity. The rider, suspended precariously above the horse, no longer commands but struggles to remain upright, while the horse itself appears rigid and strained, frozen at the edge of collapse. Together, the figures embody a profound sense of existential anxiety and the collapse of traditional certainties in post-war Europe.
The sculpture's simplified geometric forms and dynamic tensions heighten its emotional force, oscillating between control and chaos, monumentality and fragility. Marini's heavily worked bronze surface, incised, roughened, and reworked by hand after casting, gives the work exceptional tactile vitality. Traces of plaster and pigment intentionally preserved by the artist evoke the appearance of an ancient archaeological fragment, reinforcing the timeless and universal dimension of the work.
This bronze version was cast in a numbered edition of three and acquired in 1959 by Shell Petroleum Company Limited, three years before the artist's retrospective at the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1962. As announced in The Pipeline (see below), the internal magazine published by Shell for its employees in May 1961, the present work was acquired directly from the artist by Shell London for installation in the entrance hall of the newly constructed Shell Centre in London, designed by the architect Ernesto Rogers. Prior to the inauguration of the building in 1963, the sculpture was offered on loan at the Tate Gallery in London from 1961 to 1962. The work was in Shell London from 1963 to 2012, then it was exhibited in the Shell Campus den Haag in the Netherlands until today.
(Press Release)
