The Arts: Drawing

Artist Gaspare Traversi (Italian, ca. 1722 - 1770)

Date1755-1760

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 60 3/4 x 81 1/8 inches (154.31 x 206.06 cm)
Framed: 71 3/4 x 92 1/8 x 3 1/2 inches (182.25 x 234 x 8.89 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberF61-71

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionAt the center of this interior scene is a young woman seated in profile to the left. She supports a closed sketchbook, with a drawing on a sheet of paper on top, on her lap and has a chalk holder in her right hand. To her right an old man bends down toward her. The woman looks at a man seated to her right who holds open a sketchbook and points with his left hand to a drawing. At the exteme left is an old bearded man supported by a tall wood staff. A black and white dog lies on the floor near him. Behind the young woman is an old woman who has her left arm around the shoulder of a young man. In the far right background is a group of three cardplayers. In the right foreground is a seated man who looks directly out at the viewer. His right hand caresses the chin of a little girl standing to the left.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization Under the Bourbons, 1734-1805, The Detroit Institute of Arts, August 11-November 1, 1981; The Art Institute of Chicago, January 16-March 14, 1982, no. 51b.

Genre, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 5-May 15, 1983, no. 24.

A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, February 5-April 24, 1994; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 22—August 14, 1994; Seattle Art Museum, September 15—November 20, 1994; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, December I7, I994-March 4, I995, no. 52.

Gaspare Traversi: napoletani del ‘700 tra miseria e nobilità, Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples, Italy, December 13, 2003- March 14, 2004, no. 40b.

Luce sul Settecento: Gaspare Traversi e l’arte del suo tempo in Emilia, Galleria Nazionale, Parma, Italy, April 4-July 4, 2004, no. 20b.

Gallery Label

These paintings by Traversi are arguably the artist's masterpieces, and their satirical realism is typical of the worldly mockery of the 18th century. Though their full meaning is not entirely clear, it is possible that the artist is commenting on the folly of flattery. The fulsome admiration of the bystanders for the pianist, who represents the art of music, and the draftswoman, as the art of drawing, seems too exaggerated to be sincere. It has been suggested that the figure to the right in Music may be a wealthy Englishman on the Grand Tour since red was a popular color for the costume of English tourists at the time.

Provenance

With R. Herzka, Vienna, by 1927;

R. Rosenfeld, by May 16, 1952;

Purchased from his anonymous sale, Important Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings, Christie’s, London, May 16, 1952, lot 26, by David M. Koetser, London, 1952-February 20, 1953 [1];

Purchased from Koetser by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York, February 20, 1953-1961;

Its gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1961.

NOTES:

[1] Rosenfeld is listed as the seller in an annotated auctioneer catalogue, Christie’s Archive, London.

Published References

Roberto Longhi, “Altri dipinti di Gaspare Traversi,” Vita Artistica 2, no. 10 (October 1927): 239-40.

Nikolaus Pevsner and Otto Grautoff, Barockmalerei in den romanischen Ländern (Wildpark-Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1928): 205-06, (repro.).

Rodolfo Pallucchini, “Precisazioni alla R. Galleria Estense,” Bollettino d’Arte 29 (1936): 546n54.

Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler 33 (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1939), 361.

Catalogue of Pictures by Old Masters and Works of the Modern School (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, May 16, 1952), 7.

Riccardo Bacchelli and Roberto Longhi, eds., Teatro e immagini del settecento italiano (Turin: Edizioni Radio italiana, 1953), 90, 196, (repro.).

Wilhelm E. Suida, Art of the Italian Renaissance from the Samuel H. Kress Collection (Columbia, SC: Columbia Museum of Art, 1954), 60, 61, (repro.), (Drawing).

Roberto Longhi, “Altri dipinti di Gaspare Traversi,” in Saggi e ricerche, 1925—1928, vol. 2, part 1 (Florence: Sansoni, 1967), 218-19, (repro.).

Mario Praz, Conversation Pieces; A Survey of the Informal Group Portrait in Europe and America (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971), 71-74, (repro.).

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 530, 541 [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 62, 73]

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 205, 494, 589.

Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, 16-18^th Century (London: Phaidon, 1973), 117-18, (repro.).

Civiltà del ’700 a Napoli, 1734—1799, vol. 1, exh. cat. (Naples: Museo di Capodimonte, 1979), 230-31, (repro.).

Ferdinando Bologna, Gaspare Traversi nell’illuminismo europeo (Naples: Gaetano Macchiaroli, 1980), 23n44, 26-27, 51, 64, 85, (repro.).

Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée, Dijon, Musée Magnin: Catalogue des tableaux et dessins italiens (XVᵉ-XIXᵉ siécles) (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1980), 110-11.

Ellis K. Waterhouse, “The Literature of Art: Gaspare Traversi nell’illuminismo europeo by Ferdinando Bologna," The Burlington Magazine 123, no. 939 (June 1981): 364.

The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization Under the Bourbons, 1734-1805, vol. 1, exh. cat. (Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1981), 150-51.

Robert Hughes, "Art: When Europe Began in Naples," Time (August 31, 1981).

John H. D’Arms, “The Glittering Prizes of 18^th-Century Naples,” Art News 81 (February 1982): 104, 105, (repro.).

Michael Stoughton, “The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization under the Bourbons 1734-1805," Art Journal 13 (1982): 55.

Ross E. Taggart and Laurence Sickman, Genre, exh. cat (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), 13.

Francesco Barocelli, “Di Gaspare Traversi: Due scene e un autoritratto,” Paragone 37, nos. 431-433 (1986): 106, 109, (repro.).

Nicola Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del settecento, vol. 2, Dal Rococò al Classicismo (Naples: Electa, 1987), 104, (repro.).

Robert Enggass, “Gaspara Traversi” (Kress Lecture, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 24, 1989), 11-14,

Jean K. Cadogan, ed., Wadsworth Atheneum Paintings II: Italy and Spain, Fourteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries (Hartford: The Atheneum, 1991), 249, 251n8.

Jacques Foucart, ed., Musée du Louvre: Nouvelles acquisitions du département des peintures (1987—1990) (Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1991), 174.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933-1993 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 87.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 130, 191, (repro.).

Francesco Barocelli, “The painter on the drawing room, Gaspare Traversi; the singular fluency of Traversi,” Franco Maria Ricci 14 (October 1994): 87, 90, 92, (repro.).

Chiyo Ishikawa, A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, exh. cat. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), 50, 57, 264-67, (repro.).

Letter from Minna Heimbürger-Ravalli to Eliot Rowlands, January 23, 1995, NAMA curatorial files.

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800, (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 21, 436-447.

Nicola Spinosa, Gaspare Traversi: napoletani del ‘700 tra miseria e nobilità, exh. cat. (Naples: Electa, 2003), 142-143.

Nicola Spinosa and Lucia Fiornari Schianchi, Luce sul Settecento: Gaspare Traversi e l’arte del suo tempo in Emilia, exh. cat. (Naples: Electa, 2004), 101-102.

Ian Kennedy, “Gaspare Traversi’s Allegories of Music and Drawing,” Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano saggi e documenti 2010-2011 (Naples: Arte'm, 2011): 72-75, (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.