Gaspare Traversi

Gasparo Traversi
Self-portrait
Born	1722 Naples
Died	1770 Rome
Nationality	Italian
Education	Francesco Solimena
Known for	Painting Genre works

Gaspare Traversi (c. 1722 – 1 November 1770) was an Italian Rococo painter best known for his genre works. Active mostly in his native city of Naples, he also painted throughout Italy, including a stay in Parma.

Gaspare appears to have been born to a Genoese merchant living in Naples. He appears to have been baptized on February 15, 1722, in the church of Santa Maria dell'Incoronatella in Naples under the name Gasparro Giovanni Battista Pascale Traversa. He trained under Francesco Solimena. He was a contemporary of other Solimena pupils, Giuseppe Bonito (1707–1789), also a genre painter, and Francesco de Mura (1696–1784). He was active mainly between 1732 and 1769.

Traversi can be described as a Neapolitan Hogarth, Steen or Longhi, working in a Caravaggist style. Traversi's satirical paintings typically depict animated groups of bourgeois protagonists that seem compressed physically into an indoor pictorial space that can barely contain them. Even his religious canvases have foreshortened crowding. Facial expressions are lively and varied; some of the characters, often children, stare at the viewer. Women are often situated in either a foolish or ironic situation, or engage in a pulchritudinous talent, while men leer or participate with other intentions in mind. One could view these as elaborations of moralistic tales, such as Caravaggio's The Fortune Teller, a topic which Traversi also depicted, but Traversi's living rooms are more densely populated, and the emotions, as well as the situations, teeter awkwardly with imbalance.

Although he had no pupils, his influence was significant, and can be seen in the works of Lorenzo de Caro, Giuseppe Bonito and Orazio Solimena.

Traversi was a focus of a monograph by Roberto Longhi.

Gallery

• 
  Fortune-teller & Pickpocket
• 
  Surgeon inspects Wound
• 
  The Concert
• 
  The Drawing Lesson
• 
  Sitting for Portrait
• 
  Reading a Letter
• 
  Old beggar with Urchin
• 
  Job mocked by his Wife
• 
  Absalom murders Amnon
• 
  St Margaret of Cortona
• 
  Portrait of Fra Raffaello da Lugagnano
• 
  Portrait of Gian Lorenzo Berti
• 
  Judith with Head of Holofernes

Partial anthology of works

Painting	Date	Site	Link
Judith with Head of Holofernes		Private Collection, Milan
The Seduction		Collezione Luigi Koelliker, Milan
Old beggar con scugnizzo		Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
Portrait of cardinal Gian Giacomo Millo	c. 1753	Private collection, Milan	[1]
The Scribe		Galleria Estense, Modena
Monaco di Baviera		Private collection, Modena
Maternal Orgoglio		Private collection, Modena
Saints Lucia, Agatha & Apollonia		Cathedral, Parma	[2]
Child Jesus before St. Anthony of Padua		Cathedral, Parma
Saints Pasquale Baylon & Bernardino		Cathedral, Parma
St. Peter of Alcantara in ecstasy		Cathedral, Parma
Crucifixion & Franciscan Saints		Cathedral, Parma
Pentecost		Church of San Pietro d'Alcantara (Parma)
The concert		Private collection, Parma
Saint Francis receives stigmata		Santa Maria di Campagna, Piacenza
Mandola player		Pinacoteca D'Errico, Matera	[3]
Child with wine glass and flask		Pinacoteca D'Errico, Matera	[4]
Music Lesson		Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City	[5]
Design Lesson		Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City
A fantasy		Fondazione Roberto Longhi, Florence
Saint Jerome		Private collection Mina Gregori, Florence
Life of the Virgin		Santa Maria dell’Aiuto, Naples
Portrait of Cleric		Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
Musical entertainment		Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
Brawl during Card Game		Certosa di San Martino, Naples	[6]
The Secret Letter		Museo Pignatelli, Naples	[7]
Musical entertainment		Museo Pignatelli, Naples
Maternity		Private collection, Naples
Concert with Mandolin Player		Private collection, Naples	[8]
The fiancee		Private collection, Naples
The Card Game		Private collection, Naples
The Marriage Contract		Palazzo Barberini, Rome
Portrait of Fra Joannethino de Molina		Palazzo Barberini, Rome
Portrait of Fra’ Raffaello da Lugagnano		Private collection, Rome
Resurrection of Lazarus		San Paolo fuori le mura, Rome
Murder during Meal at the House of Absalom (Absalom murders Amnon)	1752	San Paolo fuori le mura, Rome	[9]
La poppata		Private collection, Rome
Entertainment del pupo		Private collection, Rome
The couple's dance		Private collection, Rome
Three Ages of Man		Private collection, Turin
Stations of the Cross (14 canvases)		Chiesa di San Rocco, Borgotaro
Mourning over Dead Christ		Museo della Collegiata, Castell’Arquato near Parma (originally church of Convent of Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto)
Christ mocked		ibid
Ecce Homo		ibid	[10].
Posing for Portrait	1754	Louvre, Paris	[11]
Gian Lorenzo Berti	c. 1754–1756	Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg
The Laugh	1754
The Wound	1752	Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice	[12]
The Surgery		Staatsgalerie Stuttgart	[13]
The Card Party		Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen	[14][usurped]
The Concert		Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen
Self-portrait		Seattle	[15]
Teasing a Sleeping Girl		Metropolitan Museum, New York City	[16]
Saint Margaret of Cortona	c. 1758	Metropolitan Museum, New York City	[17]
Portrait of a Man (attributed)		Metropolitan Museum, New York City	[18]
A Quarrel over a Board Game	c. 1752	Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

References

• Francis P. Smyth and John P. O'Neill (Editors in Chief) (1986). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (ed.). The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries. pp. 373–378. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Wittkower, Rudolf (1980). Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750. Pelican History of Art (Penguin Books Ltd). pp. 494–495.
• Naples Exhibition in 2005 was titled Gaspare Traversi. Napolitans of the 1700s between Misery and Nobility [19]
• Stuttgart Exhibition: Gaspare Traversi Amusement in the Shade [20]
• Parma Exhibition:Luminary of the 1700s: Gaspare Traversi and his painting in Emilia,[21].