Description
Giuseppe Maria Crespi, called lo Spagnoletto (Bologna 1665 – Bologna 1747) – Pair of Children.
Oil on canvas, in carved and gilded wooden frames.
Publications:
A. Morandotti, Cinque pittori del Settecento: Ghislandi, Crespi, Magnasco, Bazzani, Ceruti, Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome, 1943, cat. nos. 13-14, pp. 34-35.
G. Briganti, Cinque pittori del Settecento a Palazzo Massimo, in Emporium. Rivista mensile d’arte e di cultura, vol. XCII, no. 581, 1943, p. 196.
Giuseppe Maria Crespi, known as lo Spagnoletto, is among the most distinctive figures of early eighteenth-century Bolognese painting. Trained within the Emilian academic tradition, he turned early toward a realism of Nordic and Caravaggesque derivation, far removed from the classicist canon. His painting, characterized by dense and vibrant handling, strong contrasts of light, and close attention to human figures in everyday settings, exerted a direct influence on the formation of Pietro Longhi and Giovan Battista Piazzetta.
The two paintings belong to Crespi’s early period and clearly illustrate his stylistic hallmarks: the paint surface, soft and suffused with light, models the figures naturally and without idealization. The brushwork proceeds with that freedom of touch which Giuliano Briganti identified as the artist’s defining trait, in contrast to the academic culture of contemporary Bologna.
The two canvases depict a shepherd boy with a staff and a small dog at his feet, and a young girl holding a hen. The figures, isolated against dark, earthy backgrounds, draw on the tradition of genre scenes of Nordic and Flemish derivation, reworked through the lens of Emilian naturalism. The paintings were exhibited at the Cinque pittori del Settecento show at Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome in 1943, curated by Dr. Alessandro Morandotti, and reviewed by Giuliano Briganti in Emporium, who described them as typical examples of Crespi’s early manner: pastoral figures modelled in a soft, light-infused pictorial matter.
Condition report: Relined canvases. Good state of conservation of the painted surface.
