The Jewish Angel

This still life is exceptional in the oeuvre of this artist, whose acclaimed magical Italian cityscapes of 1911 to 1917 would influence the Surrealists a decade later. Painted wood elements, among them a pink-dotted French curve, blue-and-white meter stick, and right angles, are stacked pell-mell above what might be kilometer markers. Among these objects, an oversize eye, crudely drawn on a large piece of paper, surprises. De Chirico's father was an engineer with a railroad company, and it has been suggested that this scaffoldlike structure and eye might be an abstract portrait of him. (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)