Lot 16

Robert Compton Jones

These hitherto unpublished works are almost certainly near contemporary copies after a group of small genre subjects that Crespi painted in the 1720s, and may have been commissioned by an English patron. The group has yet to be fully established, but are collectively known under the title, Vita di una canterina (see D. Biagi Maino, 'Giuseppe Maria Crespi e la realtà popolare' in Il Popolo nel Settecento, ed. A.M. Rao, Rome, 2020). These gently comic and mildly satirical scenes, are related to La pulce (or 'Woman searching for fleas'), of similar dimensions (55 x 41 cm), now in the Musée du Louvre (RF 1970 40). The present two pictures, one depicting a woman seated with a small dog, while another figure is seen through a doorway descending the stairs; and a sleeping woman with a man in a doorway gesturing to us to be silent, are typical of these evocative domestic interiors. The figures portrayed are not from high society, but rather servants and working people, yet they retain a sense of dignity despite the simple, even squalid interiors that they inhabit. These compositions would appear to be the only surviving copies after Crespi's untraced originals. Crespi's genre scenes such as these were influential on a number of later artists, including William Hogarth (1697-1764) and the French Romantic painters of the early nineteenth century.

We are very grateful to Professor Donatella Biagi-Maino, from the University of Bologna, for her help in cataloguing this work.

Tim Hunter


RELATED WORK:
Crespi, Searching for Fleas, oil on canvas, 55 x 41cm, Louvre, Paris, RF 1970 40