Title of the work: "Personaggio" or "Personaggio con gonna ondulata"

Year: 1999

Material: Bronze (made with lost wax casting)

Dimensions: 20x26x61cm

Description: Standing woman with ankle-length geometric patterned skirt, bare arms and feet. Hint of the shape of veiled breasts. The work was replicated in a monumental bronze version in 2014 (dimensions 98x170x360 cm), donated to the Municipality of Milan and placed in via Vittor Pisani, the first work dedicated to the Women of the city of Milan. On the back is the artist's full signature and the year of creation.

Current location: ARB space. Via Legnano 14, Milan, Italy.

Quotation for the work: € 10,000-15,000

Rachele Bianchi (Milan 1925 - 2018) was an Italian sculptor and illustrator. She left an artistic legacy consisting of about 1600 works including sculptures, bas-reliefs, drawings, watercolors and tempera. Almost all of these works depict women.

Her life was defined by continuous research and experimentation and in the fifties she went on the discovery of matter and volumes. Bas-reliefs, landscapes in terracotta and plaster, small figures modeled without the use of a lathe, which often related to religious themes or childhood and motherhood. She also completed pencil drawings in which she highlighted the "shapes" of the woman. In Rachele's works the male figure is almost completely absent with the main subjects being women, figures who are often standing, wrapped in heavy geometric shield-like dresses or cloaks with an aesthetic that has a primitive feel.

The nineties were a time for heightened production and evolution in Rachele's work as she abandoned hard lines in favor of sculptures with softer shapes, complete with dresses made up of waves and faces with calmer gazes. In later years her works saw a return to painting and drawing but she kept the volumes into which she added her key element, the net.