ERCOLE DREI
(Faenza, 1886 - Rome, 1973)
The Victory (1925)
Patinated plaster
Height 15 cm
Signed on the base “DREI”
Bibliography:
Ercole Drei - Eternal modern classic language.
Echi dal Novecento 6 - Studiolo, Milan 2020
Edited by G.Cribiori, plate 10
Minerva (or Athena) è is the Roman deity of loyalty in the struggle of heroic virtues, of just war (war for just causes or for defense), of wisdom, of strategies.
Unlike the other models examined so far, our goddess enjoys some more articulated detail and set up with more verve, especially with regard to the modeling of the mantle that turns into the wings of the goddess.
In this this case it could be an alternative sketch for La Vittoria, which was then used by Drei for the monument to the fallen of Savignano sul Rubicone, with a considerably ù more dramatic à and evocative pose, caught in the act of unsheathing her sword, before raising it to the sky.