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A man, woman, a small table, chair, and two fragments of walls float on an octagonal, straw-colored floor amid a landscape with bare, rolling, olive-green hills in this stylized, vertical painting. The man and woman have pale skin and are positioned on opposite sides of the table from each other. To our left, the heavily-built man stands with his right hand, to our left, planted on the white tablecloth that nearly reaches the floor. He is cleanshaven with curly black hair, a round face, and a prominent nose. His large, dark eyes are deeply set, and a few cross-hatched black lines could indicate shadows or a black eye. His rumpled suit, vest, shirt, and tie are all sand brown. He looks toward a woman seated on our side of the table, opposite him. Her body is angled away from us to our right. Her blond hair is pulled up and she wears a white, sleeveless, floor-length dress that drapes over her shoulders and down her back. Her wooden chair has a teal-blue inset panel at the back and turned legs, and it sits on a pumpkin-orange, rectangular area rug. The paneled floor seems to float in the landscape. The robin’s egg-blue door to our right, opposite the woman, opens inward in its frame, and the corner above the top right is stacked with laid bricks. A sliver of wall alongside the door frame suggests the turning of a corner in the room. To our left, behind the man, a second fragment of yellow-paneled wall stands behind the corner of a dark, mahogany dresser or cabinet carved along its back with curving, S-shaped molding. A framed picture showing the head and shoulders of a woman in tones of white and gray against a periwinkle-blue background hangs at the top of the yellow wall. The curving back of a mint-green, upholstered chair peeks out over the woman’s right shoulder. The floor is set among barren hills with a watery blue sky above. The painting is created mostly with areas of flat colors with outlines and hatched shading in black and white, like pen strokes. The artist signed the painting on the floating floor near the lower right corner, “G. de Chirico.”

Giorgio De Chirico

Conversation among the Ruins, 1927

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 130.5 x 97.2 cm (51 3/8 x 38 1/4 in.)

framed: 152.4 x 117.8 x 7.6 cm (60 x 46 3/8 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.107

Artists / Makers

Giorgio De Chirico (painter) Italian, 1888 - 1978

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right: G. de Chirico

Provenance

Purchased from the artist by Léonce Rosenberg [1879-1947], Paris;[1] sold possibly May 1928 to (Valentine Dudensing, New York), but definitely by 1 June 1928;[2] purchased 2 February 1929 by Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York;[3] bequest 1963 to NGA.

[1] Fonds de Léonce Rosenberg, Bibliotheque Kandinsky, Centre Pompidou, Paris: archive no. 884076, photo no. 928. See Giorgia Chierici, "Giorgio de Chirico and America: The Artist's First Solo Show at the Valentine Gallery in New York," Metaphysical Art 19/20 (2020): 125.

[2] The painting was number 160 in a 1928 Valentine Gallery inventory of that date, as well as subsequent inventories ("La conversation 800 dollars"); it was number 8840 on the receipt documenting twelve paintings sold by Rosenberg to Dudensing. See Chierici, 123, 124 n. 45, 125.

[3] Per Valentine Gallery sales records, 1926-1944, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Chierici, 120 n. 32, 125. See also Dale collection records in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Dale, Chester
Rosenberg, Léonce
Valentine Gallery

Exhibition History

1928: New Paintings by Giorgio de Chirico, Valentine Gallery, New York, 1928-1929.

1931: A Group of Twentieth Century Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1931, no. 9

1931: Living Artists, The Pennsylania Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1931, unnumbered checklist in The Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin XXVII, no 145 (January 1932):69

1943: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943-1952 (extended loan), unnumbered catalogue, repro. p. 16

1952: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1952, no. 17, repro.

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1931: Dale, Maud. "Twentieth Century Paintings." The Carnegie Magazine V, no. 2 (May 1931):35-37, repro. [reprint from foreward to catalogue of 1931 Carnegie exhibition of paintings from the Chester Dale collection.]

1943: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1943:, 16, repro.

1952: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1952 (2nd ed., 1960; rev. ed., 1965): 17, repro.

1960: Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960 (2nd ed.): 18, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 27.

1965: Twentieth Century French Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965 (rev. ed.): 17, repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 20, repro.

1971: Bruni Sakraischik, Claudio. Catalogo generale Giorgio De Chirico, volume primo opere dal 1908 al 1930*. Milan, 1971: fig. 78.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 68, repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 117, repro.