Campfire Scene with Vagabond and Musketeer

Artist Alessandro Magnasco (Italian, 1667 - 1749)

Dateca. 1715

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 17 x 18 15/16 inches (43.18 x 48.08 cm)
Framed: 24 1/2 x 27 3/8 inches (62.23 x 69.52 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-485

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionA musketeer at right sits on a rock with his back partially turned toward the viewer and his face hidden. He wears long brown pants, a long-seeved brown and gray shirt, and a floppy three-cornered black hat. In the left foreground a man clad in a tawny-colored cowl and tall black hat sits on the ground smoking a pipe. The area around them is strewn with the paraphernalia of battle, including a drum, a shield, and a rifle in the extreme right foreground. In the left and center middle ground, makeshift tents are supported by poles in the trees. A blue-gray mountain can be seen in the center background and, at right, a stone building.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Alessandro Magnasco c. 1677-1749, Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, MA, January 12-February 6, 1938, no. 17.

The Century of Mozart. The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO, January 15-March 4, 1956, no. 70.

Alessandro Magnasco (1667-1749), J. B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, February 20-March 26, 1967; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, April 19-May 13, 1967, no. 21.

Gallery Label

Magnasco may have inherited his taste for the bizarre and picturesque from Salvator Rosa. Many of Magnasco's wild landscapes include monks or, as in this example, vagabonds and itinerant soldiers. Such paintings appealed to wealthy collectors who were curious about the lives of those without possessions and privilege, a curiosity maintained as long as it could be observed from a safe distance. Magnasco's splintery and vivacious brushwork was admired as an exciting display of virtuosity in paint.

Provenance

Guglielmo Bruini, Bologna, by 1931;

With Salvatore Romano (1875-1955), Florence and Naples, by 1933;

Purchased from Romano by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

Published References

Giuseppe Delogu, Pittori minori liguri, Lombardi, piemontesi del seicento e del settecento (Venice: Zanetti, 1931), 112, (repro.).

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 137.

Alessandro Magnasco c. 1677-1749, exh. cat. (Springfield, MA: Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, 1938), unpaginated.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 169.

Maria Pospisil, Magnasco (Florence: Fratelli Alinari, 1944), 47, 86, (repro.).

Brenno Geiger, Saggio d’un catalogo delle pitture di Alessandro Magnasco, 1667-1749: Regesti e bibliografia (Venice: Ateneo, 1945), no. 227, p.19, as Frati e soldati alla mensa intorno ad un tamburo.

Benno Geiger, Magnasco (Bergamo: Istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1949), 74, 98, (repro.).

“The Century of Mozart,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) vol. 1, no. 1, exh. cat. (January 1956): 30.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 262.

R. F. C., “Kansas City: Venticinque anni d’attività del Nelson Gallery Atkins Museum,” Emporium 132 (July-December, 1960): 33, (repro.).

Georg Gerriet Syamken, “Die Bildinhalte des Alessandro Magnasco, 1667-1749” (PhD diss., Universität Hamberg, 1965), 93, 113.

Alessandro Magnasco (1667-1749), exh. cat. (Louisville: J.B. Speed Art Museum, 1967), unpaginated, (repro.), as Soldiers Eating.

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 541 [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 73].

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 116, 496, 589.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol.1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 260.

Eliot W. Rowlands, “Two European Paintings Enhance Museum Collection,” Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (January 1989): 2.

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings, 1300-1800 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 343-48, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.