3 Vintage silver prints each c. 30 x 20 cm (11.8 x 7.9 in)
Each with the photographer’s stamp and on the reverse, each annotated in an unidentified hand in pencil and ink on the reverse
LITERATURE Diego Mormorio, Tazio Secchiaroli. Dalla dolce vita ai miti del set, Milan 1998; Giovanna Bertelli (ed.), Tazio Secchiaroli. Storie di cinema, Rome 2004.

Before making a career as a photo journalist, Secchiaroli was an errand boy at Cinecittà during the 1940s. After founding his own agency and publishing his sensational paparazzo shots, he began to collaborate with Federico Fellini and later with Sophia Loren, whose exclusive photographer he became. Starting in the 1960s, he worked as a stills photographer for various Italian film directors. The costume drama C’era una volta by the versatile Francesco Rosi became known for its atmospheric nature scenes and the fantastically exaggerated scenes of baroque court life, filmed in sumptuous colour and full of astounding cinematographic ideas.
The plot tells a fairy-tale in the style of Cinderella; Sophia Loren was ideally cast and her husband Carlo Ponti the producer. The three present photographs were shot during the first scenes. During the prologue, a prince (Omar Sharif) tames a hot-blooded white stallion in the courtyard of his palace. During his next ride, the stallion throws him off. In a village, he borrows a donkey, until he finally discovers his horse in a field and jumps off the donkey. In the meantime, however, the country maidservant Isabella (Sophia Loren) has used the stallion to harvest her turnips. They get into a physical fight about the horse; the prince wins and the maidservant stays behind on her turnip field. Finally, after turbulent trials, maledictions and banquets, the prince and the maidservant are married.