The Pickpocket
Artist
Giorgio Sommer
(Italian, born Germany, 1834 - 1914)
Dateca. 1865
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 9 3/8 × 7 5/8 inches (23.81 × 19.37 cm)
Mount: 13 1/2 × 10 1/4 inches (34.29 × 26.04 cm)
Mount: 13 1/2 × 10 1/4 inches (34.29 × 26.04 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Hall Family Foundation
Object number2017.61.33
SignedOn sheet recto, lower right corner, printed in black type: “C. Sommer – Napoli”
Inscribednone
MarkingsOn sheet recto, lower left, in pencil: “11613”;
On mount verso, upper left corner, in pencil: “1.”;
On mount verso, lower left corner, in pencil: “01956”.
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionImage of mustachioed man in top hat getting shoes shined as young boy in bare feet pulls something from the man's jacket pocket. The man leans on a walking stick as he reads the paper unaware of the boy.Exhibition HistoryRotation 26. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 29, 2019- August 25, 2019, no cat.
A hunched shoeshine and a young pickpocket are both hard at work in this staged scene photographed by Giorgio Sommer. Born in Germany, Sommer spent his adult life in Italy, opening successful commercial photographic studios in both Naples and Rome. Sommer’s studios specialized in photographs of Italy’s landscape, architecture, and people, including this kind of genre scene that played to tourists’ expectations and prejudices toward Italians.
Serge Kakou, Paris, France;
Purchased from Serge Kakou by the Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2017;
Given by the Hall Family Foundation to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2017.
Purchased from Serge Kakou by the Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2017;
Given by the Hall Family Foundation to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2017.
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