The Concert (or Music Lesson)

Oil on canvas

52 x 96 cm.

Framed 71 x 117 cm.

This fascinating painting, depicting a cross-section of family life with the members intent on improvising a small concert, is in our opinion to be included in the pictorial corpus of the Neapolitan painter Gaspare Traversi (Naples, 1722 - Rome, 1770), one of the most original painters of the 18th century in Italy.

A pupil of Francesco Solimena, after his Neapolitan beginnings he was mainly active in Rome, where he arrived around 1752, initially moving towards a production with a religious character in a style very close to that of his master.

However, he soon found his vocation, turning his attention to portrait and genre painting (The Concert, c. 1755, Naples, Museo Pignatelli), becoming a specialist of great skill in the psychological study and realistic rendering of characters, borrowed from the aristocratic and popular circles of Bourbon Naples.

This vein, which met with great success among his patrons, led him to a production of paintings, in small and medium format, capable of immersing the observer in moments of everyday reality at its most genuine;

In our case, a bourgeois family is most probably attending the violin lesson of one of their children, with the two parents at the ends of the painting and the maestro in the middle who is accompanying the young man with a mandolin. The scene is made sympathetic and realistic by the little girl, the perhaps bored sister who, in order to joke and disturb the music, pulls the tail of the dog sitting on her pillow.

The public, weary of pompous representations of sacred scenes or mythological episodes with heroic poses, of portraits of lifeless people impaled in the frame, gladly welcomed these simple, natural paintings, shot through with liveliness and joie de vivre.

Thus was born a series of paintings with significant variations depicting the painter's studio, the sewing school, the card game, gallant entertainments in the drawing room and garden, the masquerade, the pranks in the alleyways of the city or in the most infamous taverns, which were praised by the entire public and earned him a great name.

These were fundamental compositions in the artistic career of Traversi, whose painting was certainly inspired by his fellow countryman Giuseppe Bonito (whose works are often confused due to their stylistic uniformity), who was also engaged in illustrating "daily life and the picturesque aspects of Neapolitan society, so dear to the taste of a cultured and refined clientele still engaged in the traditional journey of education in Italy and the South" (De Rosa).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The painting is sold complete with a pleasing gilded frame and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic card.

We take care of and organise the transport of the purchased works, both for Italy and abroad, through professional and insured carriers.

Should you have the desire to see this or other works in person, we will be happy to welcome you to our new gallery in Riva del Garda, Viale Giuseppe Canella 18. We are waiting for you!

Contact us for any information or to arrange a visit, we will be happy to answer you.

In case of purchase of the work by non-Italian customers, it will be necessary to obtain an export permit, which takes about 10/20 days; our gallery will take care of the whole phase until it is obtained. All costs of this operation are included.

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