Magnasco’s exuberant technique and fantastical subject matter set him apart from his contemporaries. Among picturesque ruins, people from the fringes of society gather to watch the spectacle of a man trying to teach a magpie to sing—an impossible task. This highly theatrical painting was probably executed while Magnasco was working for the Medici family in Florence, a time when he shared preferences in palette and technique with the artist Sebastiano Ricci. Though this is a finished painting, the light touch was inspired by an appreciation of a sketch-like aesthetic in the circles of both artists and collectors.
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Credit Line:Purchase, Katherine D. W. Glover Gift, 1984
Object Number:1984.191
[Julius Böhler, Munich, 1966; sold to Thaw]; [E. V. Thaw, New York, 1966–84; sold to The Met]
London. Artemis. "An Exhibition of Paintings by Fetti and Magnasco," November 16–December 20, 1977, no. 4.
An Exhibition of Paintings by Fetti and Magnasco. Exh. cat., Artemis. London, 1977, unpaginated, no. 4, ill. in color (overall and detail on cover), suggests that it may have been painted in Milan in the early 1720s; adds that "The Gypsy Family" (formerly Sambon collection, Paris) may have been a pendant.
B[enedict]. N[icolson]. "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions." Burlington Magazine 119 (December 1977), p. 873, notes that "the details of magpie and barrels is [sic] in the best tradition of North Italian genre".
Michael Hunt Stolbach. Spencer A. Samuels, Inaugural Exhibition: Master Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. Exh. cat., Spencer A. Samuels. New York, 1984, unpaginated, under no. 6.
Keith Christiansen inThe Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1984–1985. New York, 1985, p. 26, ill., notes that Sebastiano Ricci based a painting (Musée Calvet, Avignon) on Magnasco's first version of this subject (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), and that Ricci's work may have influenced the "blond palette and rich surface treatment" of the MMA picture, which would suggest a date of about 1707–8, when both Ricci and Magnasco were in Florence.
An Exhibition of Master Drawings. Exh. cat., Colnaghi. New York, 1992, unpaginated, under no. 35, mentions it in connection with a drawing of the same subject by Giuseppe Maria Crespi.
Laura Muti et al. Alessandro Magnasco. Faenza, 1994, pp. 226–27, no. 152, fig. 447, as formerly with a London art dealer; attribute the figures to Magnasco and the background to an unknown collaborator.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 109, ill.
The subject was depicted by Magnasco on several occasions (see Benno Geiger, Magnasco, Bergamo, 1949), first in a canvas (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) painted for Ferdinando de' Medici, by whom Magnasco was employed between 1703 and 1710. The Met's picture probably dates from about 1707–8, when Magnasco was in contact with Sebastiano Ricci.
Federico Barocci (Italian, Urbino ca. 1535–1612 Urbino)
ca. 1600–1604
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