The Operation (The Wound)

(Gaspare Traversi)

This painting is a version of the composition now in the Accademia, Venice which was once attributed to Bonito when in the Duke of Melito Collection, Naples [2] but which was later given by Longhi to Traversi.[3] The Accademia picture is both larger and contains more figures than the exhibited version which reuses the same doctor, his assistant and the injured youth. Both paintings are entirely autograph.

The exhibited picture was first published by Fiocco in 1929 [4] and exhibited in 1932.[5] At that time both versions were in the Italico Brass Collection. However, after exhibition in Brazil, it passed to a different branch of the family.

The exhibited painting may be placed in the context of the artist’s long Roman sojourn which stretched uninterrupted from 1752-1770 and may therefore be compared stylistically to The Brawl (Hartford, Wadsworth Athenaeum) and more particularly to the two bourgeois interior scenes depicting: Music and Dancing in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City. It therefore follows that our painting should be dated around 1753-4, just after his biblical paintings executed in 1752 for the basilica of S. Paolo Fuori le Mura, Rome and just before his Pentecost of 1758 which is now in the church of S. Pietro d’Alcantara, Parma. This would mean that our painting anticipates by a few years the most likely dating for the Venice Accademia version (See Fig. 1). The slightly simplified and more compact format, the extensive areas of highlighting and the drier handling of the paint as well as a greater interest in heightening the emotional tension, all contrast with the more precious, detailed, fussy handling of the later Accademia composition with its more Rococo decorative effects.

The lucid, yet impassioned sincerity with which Traversi imbues the painting, by means of an immediacy of his perception of the subject matter, which is portrayed with stunning realism and insight into the psychological suffering of the participants, is typical of his treatment of similar scenes such as The Love Letter Detected (Sarasota, Ringling Museum; Fig. 2). Both the present and the Sarasota picture exemplify Traversi’s pungent almost mordant humour in depicting the mundane world of every day events in conurbations such as Rome or Naples, or elsewhere in Italy in mid Settecento.

He reflects accurately, the aspirations, hopes, attitudes and traditions of the newly emerging bourgeoisie, the new rich and the parvenu. In this he demonstrates a link with his predecessor, Bonito.

Ferdinando Bologna has demonstrated in his monograph,[6] that Traversi is not consciously acting as a critic of social morals or deliberately attempting to illustrate the ideological or cultural tendencies of his time, but is rather in harmony with a process which finds an almost identical development in the commedia dell’arte, or local theatre, where actors and comedians enacted and interpreted on stage domestic situations in the newly developing urban society and attitudes.

NOTES

[1] Mrs Prentis consigned three lots of paintings to this sale, all attributed to G. B. Piazzetta and all purchased by F. Murray. The others were lot 43 ‘The Senses – a set of four’ (13 guineas) and lot 44 ‘The Senses – a set of four, smaller (26 guineas).

[2] Accademia Gallery, Venice, 101 x 128 cm. The painting passed to the Italico Brass Collection, Venice, before entering the Accademia.

[3] R. Longhi, ‘Di Gaspare Traversi’, in Vita Artistica, 1927, pp. 145-167: republished in Saggi e Ricerche 1925-28, Florence, 1967, p. 207, pl. 180 and XXI.

[4] Loc. cit.

[5] Loc. cit.

[6] F. Bologna, Gaspare Traversi nell’illuminismo europeo, Naples, 1980, see particularly chapter IV ‘ha critica Socio Morale di Traversi e il dibattito Europeo sulla rappresentazione del carattere’.

PROVENANCE: Mrs Prentis, 4 Rocky Hill Terrace, Maidstone, Kent; sale, Christie’s, London, 27 July 1895, probably part of lot 42 ‘G. B. Piazzetta – Laughing; and Crying – a pair’ (20 guineas to F. Murray)[1]; with Italico Brass, Venice, until 1943; Private Collection, Switzerland.

LITERATURE: G. Fiocco, ‘La pittura veneziana alla mostra del Settecento’, Rivista della Città di Venezia, 1929, p. 44, illustrated.

EXHIBITED: Venice, Il Settecento Italiano, 1929, rm. 21, no. 10; Milan and Rome, Il Settecento Italiano, 1932, I, no. 153, pl. C.; São Paolo, Brazil, Da Caravaggio a Tiepolo: Pittura Italiana del XVII e del XVIII, Sept.-Oct. 1954, p. 129, no. 112.
Matthi