CERUTI, Giacomo

This full-length, almost life-size, depiction of a poor old man was designed to fit over a door or window, as suggested by the low viewpoint and the traces of brown preparatory underdrawing. The stick of the sitting figure of about seventy years of age, the knapsack on his shoulders, and the wicker basket all identify him as a pilgrim rather than as a beggar seeking alms.

This painting (also called The Porter) belongs to a series of similar subjects that in part has been lot and in part is in private collections. It shows Ceruti’s usual predilection for the humble and amiable aspects of everyday working life. His renderings of men at work and workers at rest earned him the nickname of “Little Beggarman” (pitocchetto); he was the bard of the otherwise unchronicled poor. This “porter” shows better than other works by the artist - which are more akin to genre scenes - his intense lyricism and idealizing abstraction. Devoid of indulgent description and reduced to essentials, the scene is composed on a system of opposed diagonals and has an atmosphere of subdued resignation. The boy, leaning against a large basket, is portrayed without apparent comment but the painting still suggests a life of hardship and Ceruti’s sympathy with his subject.

This painting is on deposit from a private collection.

Ceruti was a specialist in depicting poor people, labourers, cripples and beggars in life-size figures on large canvases. He composed his pictures in the pale tints of the dust and rags in which his mendicants, known as ‘pitocchi,’ dwelt. And for this strange speciality, Ceruti came to be called by the uncomplimentary nickname ‘il pitocchetto’, the ‘little beggar.’

Ceruti often painted the seemingly countless boys who earned a meagre living as porters for hire in the city streets. The winters are cold in Brescia, near the Alps, a young boy has wrapped himself as warmly as possible, his buttonless jacket tied with a rope. He strides purposefully across an open space, not breaking his stride, but looks directly at us. In the background are seen the crumbling walls of a rustic hospice that provides shelter to the poor and invalid.

This painting belongs to the Padernello cycle (a series of about twelve paintings executed for the castle of Padernello). It represents an old man and a girl at the edge of a penumbral wood. The man, seated on a rock and wearily supported himself on a long stick, is probably a war veteran, now fallen into the most dire straits. The young girl is mysteriously faceless and without an identity, she is reduced to a jumble of rags.

Ceruti was Milanese by birth but chose to live in Brescia. He was one of the most interesting Lombard painters of the eighteenth century but his output is very varied and patchy. In his altarpieces and religious paintings he seems unsure of himself, but in his portraits he could be penetratingly intense. In his works about the poor, he sometimes bordered on genius and gave rise to a new genre in painting. No one before him, not even Caravaggio, had ever portrayed with such moving grandeur the rejected of this earth, those whom the Italians call the “pitocchi” (hence Ceruti’s nickname Pitocchetto, the Little Miser).

The tradition of “painting from reality” spanned several centuries and was an authentic and deep aspect of Lombard art, where Ceruti’s place is crucial both for its stylistic and moral importance. In the middle of a century too often written off as frivolous and superficial, Ceruti painted little seamstresses, washerwomen, errand boys and idiots, stragglers and the destitute. In doing so, he sounded a note of humanity that is still heart-touching. The characters in these street ballads are portrayed nobly. Ceruti’s brush explores their souls and melds them with the dull and dark colours of their clothes. It is thanks to Ceruti that we have a different, disenchanted but moving image of the eighteenth century.

The young peasant girl rests her head in her palm, in a pose taken from depictions of ‘Melancholia,’ and the resignation reflected in her face may conjure up a similar mood. The distaff, so prominent in the painting, is a traditional symbol of women’s work as well as an attribute of the Fate Clotho.. It was also part of the iconography used in depictions of courtesans and brothels in Venetian art.

This painting belongs to the Padernello cycle (a series of about twelve paintings executed for the castle of Padernello). It represents two full-length, life-size figures, whose precise relationship is unclear. The sharp, crude realism of the figures is contrasted with the almost evanescent quality of the background, which is painted in a summary manner with swift, fluid brushstrokes.

This portrait is composed within an oval against a brown-grey background, and its focus is on the bust and left hand of a Capuchin friar whose identity remains unknown.

The present work is a rare example of painting on glass by Giacomo Ceruti, painted during the final years of his Brescian period. It is a simple, unembellished portrayal of a young country woman against a plain background.

Reverse painting on glass is an age old practice. The main difference in painting on glass (as opposed to wood or canvas) is that the image is painted on one side of the glass, but viewed from the other. Thus, the paint must be applied in the reverse of the usual order, with the finer details painted first and the background completed last.

Ceruti was highly regarded as a portraitist and this pair of oval portraits from the mid-i8th century form a good example of his work.

Ceruti was highly regarded as a portraitist and this pair of oval portraits from the mid-i8th century form a good example of his work.

This canvas, depicting a pilgrim who sleeps under the shade of a tree, is another example of Ceruti’s special interest in the world of the humble and outcast.

This still-life with herring, lobster, turbot, red mullet, oysters, gurnard, lemon, chicory root, carrots, onions, terracotta pot and ladle, and straw flask, was executed during the artist’s stay in Venice, from about 1736 to 1742. Connections with Venetian painting are evident in the soft, quivering brushwork and the sumptuous, refined sense of colour, enhanced by the bright orange tonalities of the lobster, the brilliant red of the mullet, and the golden yellow of the lemon.

Ceruti is not well-known for his excellent still lifes. In these paintings we encounter the same world made up of humble things, of everyday items and stark truth which are the hallmark of his “pitocchi” paintings.

This is a striking example of Ceruti’s still-lifes.

The immediacy of this figure is accentuated by the low viewpoint and the aggressively realistic style - evident as much in the psychological profile of the individual as in the formal depiction of details of costume and setting. (Note the view of a farm village in the background, and a man defecating in the middle of the road.) The source of inspiration for Ceruti was the Beggars series of prints by Jacques Callot.

Unforgettable and touching miniature masterpiece of human and social truth, this painting is filled with an emotional involvement that balances between resignation, dignity, and accusation.

Ceruti paints his beggars with the same dignity and respect which he confers on the respectable and obviously well endowed sitters in his portraits.

The painting depicts a group of young women in full length, modestly dressed and seated on simple wicker chairs, who are making pillow lace in a bare room without windows or furnishings. The “sewing school,” a widespread theme in genre painting of the period, was most likely developed as such by the Danish artist Bernhard Keil (1624-1687), known as Monsù Bernardo, who was active in northern Italy and who repeatedly treated the subject as an allegory of the senses of touch and sight.