The Pinch of Snuff
by PIANCA, Giuseppe Antonio, Oil on canvas, 103 x 82 cm
The Pinch of Snuff belongs to the group of extremely realistic genre paintings which Pianca executed in the mid-18th century. In the decades straddling the 17th and 18th centuries, painters such as Bernhard Keil, Giacomo Francesco Cipper, Giacomo Ceruti, and others used amusement and curiosity to depict wretches and beggars, peasants with ruined hands or tables laden with simple foods, and without overly intellectualising the subjects.