Teasing a Sleeping Girl
Traversi’s career is poorly documented, but he was unquestionably the leading genre painter in eighteenth-century Naples. He translated the half-length narrative compositions of high Baroque painters such as Caravaggio into parodic images of the social classes. Their emphatic naturalism and biting wit can be compared to the more famous English artist William Hogarth. In this characteristic example, an old man tickles a young girl who has fallen asleep with a box of keepsakes on her lap.
Artwork Details
- Title: Teasing a Sleeping Girl
- Artist: Gaspare Traversi (Italian, Neapolitan, ca. 1722–1770)
- Date: ca. 1760
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 34 1/8 x 42 3/8 in. (86.7 x 107.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971
- Object Number: 1976.100.19
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings
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