The Cravat

The subject of this group is uncertain. When recorded in 1935, it was entitled Rosaura and the Doctor, thereby identifying it as a scene from an Italian Comedy play in which one of the heroines, or Innamorate, attends her father, the Doctor. (The Innamorate were assigned different names in different scenarios: Rosaura is mentioned by the Venetian writer Carlo Gozzi in his memoirs, published in 1797.) One of the four original masks, or central characters, of the commedia dell’arte, the Doctor is traditionally costumed in a short black cloak, a wide white neck ruff, and a flat-brimmed black hat, thus calling into question the identification here. What Is certain, however, is the quiet drama of the composition, in which the younger woman gently assists the older man in his dressing.

The group is otherwise unrecorded; this example is conspicuous among Capodimonte models for the discreet richness of the painting and gilding.