Amazon

Painted in 1906 and now in the Frugone Collection in Genoa, this canvas depicts an Amazon — the mythological warrior women of Greek legend who inhabited the margins of the ancient world and embodied a femininity that defied conventional gender roles. The Amazon subject enjoyed renewed popularity in European painting and sculpture during the second half of the nineteenth century, connected both to the Neo-Greek movement and to broader cultural fascination with strong, independent women that ran through the Symbolist and Decadent traditions. Ettore Tito's version of 1906 arrives in the aftermath of the Symbolist high tide, retaining its mythological framework while drawing on his characteristic interest in vigorous, three-dimensional figure painting. The Frugone Collection in Genoa is one of the major repositories of Italian late nineteenth and early twentieth-century figurative art, and its acquisition of this canvas reflects the work's quality and ambition. The Amazon's horsemanship — typically depicted at full gallop or in combat readiness — would have allowed Tito to combine figure and animal painting, both demanding in their own right.

An equestrian Amazon composition requires the painter to master both the human figure in motion and the anatomy of a horse at speed, while keeping the composition coherent and the surfaces resolved. Oil on canvas permitted the fluid, energetic brushwork needed to capture movement without sacrificing the anatomical specificity that academic training demanded.