Leonor Fini’s Le Retour des absents (1965) comes from the years when the painter turned to private gatherings of women, scenes staged like ceremonies whose meaning she withholds. The title, “The Return of the Absent,” evokes figures returning from the past, suspended between memory, dream and the present. Here a rite is already underway, to be felt rather than decoded. 

Two women lean toward each other across a pale table, their faces lost beneath heavy crowns of roses and marigolds. One is bare-shouldered; the other, in white lace and a long glove, holds one of two jeweled green goblets. Behind them, three arched windows open onto a dark lattice pricked with orange and green lights. At right, a third woman in shimmering gold stands with arms folded, her head wreathed in blue-green leaves, watching — guardian or initiate, Fini doesn’t say. 

The painting was exhibited at the Alexander Iolas Galleries — Iolas was also the dealer for Magritte, Max Ernst and later Warhol. It belonged to the Italian actress Valentina Cortese, Fini’s close friend, for whom the artist painted several works; in 2022 it was a highlight of the Milan auction of Cortese’s collection. 

The auction house read the painting as honoring “the affection that binds them for eternity, beyond life,” and the two crowned women may well be Cortese and Fini themselves. Seen that way, this is a portrait of friendship disguised as a private rite.