(Naples circa 1722–1770)
A concert,
oil on canvas, 197 x 148 cm, unframed

We are grateful to Riccardo Lattuada for suggesting the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.

The present apparently previously unpublished painting constitutes an important new addition to the corpus of early works by the Neapolitan painter Gaspare Traversi, who is celebrated for his ‘genre’ compositions. The present painting may be compared to his works of the late 1740s such as The School Master, The Sewing Teacher, The Card Game, The Dictation of a Letter all in private collections (see: Nicola Spinosa ed., Gaspare Traversi. Napoletani del ‘700 tra miseria e nobiltà, exh. cat., Naples 2003, ns. 13, 14, 15). At a time when the new rococo taste was asserting itself throughout Italy, these paintings interpreted, with a modern idiom, the naturalistic language of the previous century’s masters: Ribera, Battistello Caracciolo and Aniello Falcone.

A musical scene is shown in the present painting wherein various players are gathered in a circle around a table on which a number of musical scores are placed. One of these scores has dropped to the floor in the foreground. From the left, the players include: a man with his back turned to the viewer playing the cello and a violinist, beyond them is a flute player and then a mandolin player, and beside him is a woman and a child who watch on. In the left foreground, unobserved, a girl lifts a purse from the pocket of the oblivious cello player, while she invites the complicity of the spectator, lifting a finger to her lips to signal for silence.

This particular iconographic detail constitutes a surprising eighteenth-century reinterpretation of the Caravaggesque theme of buona ventura – ‘good fortune’ – which Traversi was most likely able to study through the works of the great Neapolitan masters that had adhered to Caravaggio´s manner. The painting is distinctive for its quality of subtle humour, its highly dynamic composition and its great realism: these characteristics would later become the principal traits of the artist’s mature works.

Gaspare Traversi most likely trained with Francesco Solimena in Naples, he was subsequently active principally in Rome where he had moved in around 1752. Alongside the production of sacred subjects, Traversi became celebrated for his rich production of portraits and ‘genre’ subjects in which he managed to immortalise the society of the era with great psychological refinement.