Autograph Postcard by Moravia and Photo

This is a beautiful compition, mounted under passepartout, plexiglass, and gilded frame (cm 31.3 x 2 x 42) of an original postcard by Alberto Moravia (cm 10 x 15) and a b/w photographic reproduction (cm 10.5 x 10.5), portraying the Italian writer together with the artist Fabrizio Clerici, during their last years.

Absolutely not to be missed in your collection this unique piece; the Autograph Postcard Signed by Alberto Moravia to the Countess Pecci Blunt. Cortona, Italy, July 7th 1932.  Signed Alberto Moravia in black ink. In Italian. Perfectly readable, excellent condition.

From Villa Morra Metelliano in Cortona, Alberto Moravia writes this postcard of greeting and thanks to the Countess Pecci-Blunt, best-known as “Mimi”, the patron of arts and the closed-friend of artists and intellectuals. The Italian writer thanks her for the wise and pleasant people met during the Parisian stay, at one of the Countess' residences.

The background:

During the period of this correspondence, Moravia has just started his carres as journalist: in 1927, Moravia met Corrado Alvaro and Massimo Bontempelli and they founded the magazine 900. The journal published his first short stories, but his life changed when he published in 1929 Gli Indifferenti, noteced by the critic. In 1930 Moravia started collaborating for the newspaper La Stampa, then edited by author like Curzio Malaparte. In 1933, together with Mario Pannunzio, he founded the literary review magazines Caratteri and Oggi, and he started writing for the newspaper Gazzetta del Popolo. The years leading to World War II were difficult for Moravia as an author; the Fascist regime prohibited reviews of Le ambizioni sbagliate (1935), seized his novel La mascherata 1941) and banned Agostino (Two Adolescents, 1941). In 1935 he traveled to the United States to give a lecture series on Italian literature. L'imbroglio was published by Bompiani in 1937. To avoid Fascist censorship, Moravia wrote mainly in the surrealist and allegoric styles.

Alberto Moravia (born Alberto Pincherle 1907 –1990)

Italian novelist and journalist, best-known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti (1929) and for the anti-fascist novel Il Conformista, the basis for the lucky film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. His writing was marked by its cold, precise style. It was rooted in the tradition of 19th-century narrative, underpinned by high social and cultural awareness. Indeed Moravia believed writers must "assume a moral position, a clearly conceived political, social, and philosophical attitude" but also that, ultimately, "A writer survives in spite of his beliefs. 

Countess Anna Laetitia Pecci (Rome, 1885 - Marlia, 1971)

The Italian noblewoman was an art collector, patron and nephew of Pope Leo XIII. Extremely volcanic, she was very active in the cultural field, opening numerous lounges, galleries and theaters. In 1919 she married Cecil Blumenthal, later changed to Blunt, a wealthy Jewish banker from New York, heir to an important collection of nineteenth-century French painting. His Parisian and Roman salons was frequented by artists and intellectuals of the caliber of Alberto Moravia, Salvador Dalì, Paul Valery, Poulenc, Paul Claudel and many more.