4/9/24 - Acquisition - New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Maurizio Canesso, an Italian art dealer based in Paris, told us in an interview that you can listen to in podcast here: a still anonymous painter has been named after him!
We’re all familiar with these conventional names, the ’Master’ of something, christened after the subject of his best-known work, after the name of a collector, after that of an art historian or even a museum or place where his most important painting is kept. Once a small nucleus of works has been assembled, others can be added and a body of work reconstituted. Sometimes, the anonymous artist is even given a name. The Master of the Judgement of Solomon turned out to be none other than the young Jusepe Ribera, the Master of Moulins now has his identity well established: he is Jean Hey, or the Master of the Observance is the young Sano di Pietro...
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- 1. Master of the Canesso Peddler (active in the second half of the 17th-century)
The Book Peddler, c. 1670-1690
Oil on canvas - 171.5 x 103.5 cm
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo: Galerie Canesso - See the image in its page
The "Master of the Canesso Peddler" is named after the subject of his eponymous work, which depicts a travelling salesman selling books and was owned by the Galerie Canesso (ill. 1). This painting has just been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum.
Although its creator is not yet known, the environment in which he lived has been identified. It was probably painted in northern Italy, more specifically in Lombardy. Presented in an exhibition in Brescia last year entitled Giacomo Ceruti nell’Europa del Settecento, Miseria & Nobiltà, its early attribution to Giacomo Ceruti himself was not retained, and the name convention was coined on this occasion by the exhibition curators.
Although Giacomo Ceruti, born in 1698, was active in the 18th century, this work is more likely to date from the late 17th century (the Metropolitan Museum suggests a date of around 1670-1690), several decades before Ceruti’s period of activity.
The painter himself may have been Italian, but the possibility of a Spanish artist active in Lombardy has also been raised.
Another painting (ill. 2), probably also by this "Master of the Canesso Peddler", has been linked to this one. From the Medici collections, it is currently in the reserves of the Palazzo Pitti and has a similar composition - frontal view of the main figures, a stone wall on which a placard is stuck, a related subject since it also depicts a travelling salesman selling a brooch to an old woman, and finally an identical style.
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- 2. Master of the Canesso Peddler (active in the second half of the 17th-century)
The Spectacle Seller
Oil on canvas - 230 x 150 cm
Florence, Palazzo Pitti
Photo: Palazzo Pitti - See the image in its page
A few years ago, the Galerie Canesso (see article) exhibited a similarly anonymous artist, who also painted in a realist style in Italy at the end of the 17th century, and whose affinities with both Spanish painting and the forthcoming works of Giacomo Ceruti are equally striking. The two painters, the Master of the Blue Jeans and the Master of the Canesso Peddler, although two different personalities, are undeniably comparable.
Finally, it should be noted that the Met already had, in the same vein, a painting by Bernhard Keil, another painter of miserabilist subjects in northern Italy in the 18th century, this time of Danish origin, as well as two canvases by Giacomo Ceruti (A Woman with a Dog and An Old Man with a Dog.