458 - PAINTING BY THE ARTIST MIGLIO RETTO, measuring 51 x 37 cm. Oil on plywood. Written in pen on the back: “Self-Portrait, August 1940.” Miglio Retto is the pseudonym of a painter of Lombard origin. His true identity is not precisely known. The artist was active primarily in the 1930s. Stylistically, his works reflect a strong influence from the fashion and artistic tastes of the era, particularly echoing the characteristic traits of Amedeo Modigliani’s painting. His known body of work includes oil paintings on plywood. Some critical hypotheses place him in the Lombardy or Aosta Valley regions. The man in this painting perfectly embodies the visual archetype of the Milanese or Lombard painter-intellectual of the 1930s and 1940s: angular features, a sharp gaze behind round glasses, and a sober yet informal elegance. Since “Miglio Retto” is a well-established commercial pseudonym associated with the Lombard school, whoever was hiding behind the pseudonym Miglio Retto was a painter who breathed the air of Milan’s cultural scene and who painted himself in accordance with the aesthetic and anthropological codes of that period. This painting, labeled “self-portrait,” might, perhaps, shed new light on his identity.