Gaspare Traversi, (Naples, 1722 – Rome, 1770) The Music Lesson Oil on canvas 103 x 77 cm. Provenance: Bologna, Bompani Collection The scant information available on the life of Gaspare Traversi indicates that he was the son of a Genoese merchant based in Naples. Early sources state that he was baptised on 15 February 1722 in the church of Santa Maria dell’Incoronatella with the name of Gasparro Giovanni Battista Pascale Traversa. With the exception of a brief period in Parma, Traversi lived and worked in his native Naples. He first studied painting with Francesco Solimena (1657-1747), in whose workshop he would have encountered other pupils of his master such as Giuseppe Bonito (1707-1789) and Francesco de Mura (1696-1784). It is thus not by chance that in addition to echoes of Solimena, Traversi’s work reveals the notable influence of both those fellow students. From the Mura he derived his soft, tempered style and the exquisite colouring that heralds the Neapolitan Rococo, while from Bonito he undoubtedly acquired the interest in detail in his genre scenes (including the present work) which established Traversi’s reputation in Naples. From 1752 he is recorded as active in Rome, living and working in the Trastevere quarter. During this period one of his most important patrons and clients was the influential Fra Raffaello Rossi da Lugagnano who commissioned various projects from him for churches and religious houses. Notable among them was the series of six paintings that Traversi executed for the monastery of San Paulo fuori la Mura. 1 Traversi’s genre scenes, including the present one, are notable for their satirical character as images that reflect the everyday habits and customs of different archetypes of the social classes of the day. In the present remarkable work Traversi shows a music master teaching two noble ladies to play the harpsichord. 1 Spinosa, Nicola: Gaspare Traversi. Napoletani del '700 tra miseria e nobiltà, Electa, Naples, 2003, pp. 78-80 no. 5b. The older one playing the instrument looks expressively out at the viewer, showing us her face and hands in a pose that allows Traversi to offer a display of technical virtuosity through which he notably individualises the principal figure with great naturalism. As habitually found in Traversi’s compositions, the figures seem compressed into the pictorial space and almost seem to overflow it. This same device is present in the painting Teasing a sleeping Child (fig. 1) in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 2 With regard to the subject matter, it should be noted that music was present in the daily life of Rococo Naples for a variety of reasons. In the early 17th century under Habsburg rule the city became the second largest in Europe after Paris in terms of population density and rapidly established itself as a leading cultural metropolis. Enlightenment ideas reached Naples with the new Bourbon dynasty and it was during those years that due to their Genoese origins Traversi’s family attended the church of San Giorgio di Genovesi. The church was close to the Teatro di San Bartolomeo which was one of the city’s most important musical venues. It was there, for example, that Pergolesi’s “La Serva Padrona” was first performed in 1733, a work considered to be the first of the innovative Neapolitan opera buffas. It is not improbable to suggest that Traversi would have grown up listening to the sound of the arias to be heard in the dark alleyways close to the theatre and which enlivened the atmosphere of the taverns. Music and performers thus became an important source of inspiration for the artist, who depicted musicians and singers in many of his works. Notable among them due to its similarity with the present canvas is Concert for solo Singer (Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart) which although a work with more figures, employs the same device of the principal figure looking directly out at the viewer (fig. 2). 2 Metropolitan Museum (New York), Inv. no.: 1976.100.19 Bibliography: A. Cirillo Mastrocinque: La moda e il costume, in Storia di Napoli, VIII, Naples, 1971, p. 849. F. Zeri: La percezione visiva dell’Italia e degli italiani nella storia della pittura, in Storia d’Italia, VI, Turin, 1976, p. 92. G. Previtali: “La periodizzazione della storia dell’arte”, in Storia dell’arte italiana. I. Questioni e metodi, Turin, 1979, fig. 102. F. Bologna: Gaspare Traversi nell’Illuminismo europeo, Naples, 1980, pp. 15, 47, 72, note 22, fig. 14. M. Heimbürger Ravalli: “Data on the Life and Work of Gaspare Giovanni Traversi (1722? – 1770)”, in Paragone, XXXIII, 1982, 383/385, pp. 37, 42, note 59. N. Spinosa: Gaspare Traversi. Napoletani del '700 tra miseria e nobiltà, Electa, Nápoles, 2003, pp. 78-80 no. 5b. N. Spinosa: Pittura napoletana del Settecento dal Roccocò al Classicismo, Nápoles, 1987, p. 97, fig. 106. N. Spinosa: Pittura napoletana del Settecento dal Roccocò al Classicismo, 2. ed., Naples, 1993, p. 97, no. 85. F. Barocelli: Gaspare Traversi “Neapolitanus pinxit Romae” (1723 – 1770). Ipotesi, questioni, proposte su di un pittore e la sua opera, Parma 1990, pp. 117-118, no. 60. F. Barocelli: Gaspare Traversi e la “sua singolare speditezza”. Popolo in posa. Gaspare Traversi, in “Po. Quaderni di cultura padana”, Cassa di Risparmio di Parma e Piacenza, II, 1994, p. 92, fig. p. 73. A. B. Rave in Gaspare Traversi: Heiterkeit im Schatten, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 50, 165 no. 52, fig. p. 47. B. Daprà in Gaspare Traversi. Napoletani del ‘700 tra miseria e nobiltà, Naples, 2003, no. 18. B. Daprà in Luce sul Settecento. Gaspare Traversi e l’arte del suo tempo in Emilia, no. 36, Naples, 2004. A. Ratti: La musica dipinta e Gaspare Traversi in Luci, arte e “Lumi” nel Settecento tra Parma, Napoli e Roma, pp. 50, 91. F. Porzio: Pitture ridicole. Scene di genere e tradizione popolare, p. 167, Milan, 2008. Fig.1: Gaspare Traversi, Teasing a sleeping Child, Metropolitan Museum (New York) Fig.2: Gaspare Traversi, Concert for solo Singer, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart Fig.: Gaspare Traversi, The Music Lesson, Nicolás Cortés Gallery .