Lamberto Vitali - Morandi. Catalogo generale - 1977-1983

The monumental work "Morandi. Catalogue generale" (Morandi. Catalogue raisonné), or the official and definitive, reasoned catalog of Giorgio Morandi's paintings. It is the most important publication of Morandi's entire output, the pillar on which the market and the scientific study of the Bologna master are built.
Title: Morandi. Catalogue generale (Complete works in two volumes).
Author and Curator: Lamberto Vitali (the artist's closest friend, collector, and scholar).
Publisher: Mondadori Electa (Milan).
Year of publication: 1977 (First Edition) or 1983 (Second revised and expanded Edition). Both editions retain this identical graphic design.
Physical characteristics: Large-format quarto volumes, bound in cloth and protected by color-illustrated dust jackets that reproduce two famous oil still lifes (one in warm/brown tones and one in light/ochre tones).

The work catalogues, in strictly chronological order, every authentic oil painting Morandi created in his lifetime:
Volume I: Covers the youthful production, the metaphysical period, and works up to the 1940s.
Volume II: Collects the mature production from the 1940s to his death in 1964.

Limited edition: The presence of the hand-numbered stamp Exemplar No. 597 of only 999 in the world certifies the originality and exclusivity of the first printing. Art-book collectors (bibliophiles) almost exclusively seek copies bearing this internal numbering.

Volume One (1913–1947): 382 total pages.
Volume Two (1948–1964): 356 total pages.

The two volumes contain the scientific cataloging and the black-and-white and color reproductions of no fewer than 1,396 oil paintings by the master, constituting the official and indispensable census to which all major institutions and art historians refer.