oil on canvas, was 135×85
Signed and dated lower right P. Conti 1934 XII
In this version, The Gypsy Girl was presented at the Roman Quadrennial in 1935. The immediately preceding version was certainly more intense, with the woman’s hips not covered by the skirt, but left bare. Her sex was barely covered by a veil, toward which stretched the snout of a monkey crouched at the bottom of her feet. Not only because of the symbolic content most obviously critical of the regime, but because of the overly unprejudiced presentation of the subject matter, the work could not have passed Fascist censorship, so Conti had to accept Giuseppe Bottai’s suggestion to modify it, with some damage in stylistic homogeneity. Even in its present state, however, the painting is evidence of the vitality of Conti’s inspiration throughout the ages.
