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Peasants near Roman Ruins
(Baroque Europe )
Monaldi specialized in anecdotal images of peasants, such as this idyllic scene with peasants during a break, eating, drinking, and playing music. It is an amusing image of a simple life focused on immediate pleasures and contrasted with the ruins of the heroic past of ancient Rome. The pyramid is surely based on the small one just outside the city walls, built by a Roman named Caius Cestius in AD 11, but here it is placed in an idealized landscape.
For more information on this painting, please see Federico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 418, p. 530.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1881 catalogue: no. 158; 1897 catalogue: no. 263, as Andrea Locatelli]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Exhibitions
| 1993 | A Renaissance Puzzle: Heemskerck's Abduction of Helen. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
Geographies
Italy, Rome (Place of Origin)
Measurements
Visible painted surface H: 25 3/8 x W: 18 3/4 in. (64.5 x 47.6 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Location in Museum
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.1151