© Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE Roma © Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE Roma

Detail



Name of Object:

The Concert

Also known as:

The Theft of The Ring

Location:

Rome, Latium, Italy

Holding Museum:

Borghese Gallery

 About Borghese Gallery, Rome

Original Owner:

Van Honthorst Collection (?)

Current Owner:

Italian State

Date of Object:

1626-30

Artist(s) / Craftsperson(s):

Gerrit van Honthorst (called Gherardo delle Notti) (1592, Utrecth (Netherlands)-1656, Utrecht (Netherlands))

Museum Inventory Number:

31

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

h: 168 cm; w: 202 cm

Provenance:

Marcantonio Borghese Collection (?)

Type of object:

Painting

Place of production:

Rome

Description:

The painting, which was probably kept by the painter's family, is one of a series of Flemish works acquired in 1783 by Marcantonio Borghese. Gerrit van Honthorst, better known in Italy as Gherardo delle Notti, fitted in perfectly with the followers of Caravaggio in Rome, who revisited and reworked Merisi's favourite subjects, especially the secular themes. This piece, which dates from 1626–1630, apparently shows a simple musical theme, although in fact the composition hides a moral meaning.
Typical of the art of the Counter-Reformation and particularly esteemed in the culture of the Netherlands, the artist's homeland, are themes related to allegories intended to express moral meanings. In this case, music, an excellent, virtuous, but also ephemeral art, is represented by an old woman who, in pointing to her toothless mouth, appears to be warning the three youths playing a concert of the fleetingness of youth and beauty.
The subject also reveals the trick being played on the young man who, intent on singing, fails to realise that the maiden is taking his earring, with the complicity of the old woman, who is ready to slip it into her pocket. The theme of the trick is related to the allegorical evocation of the five senses: hearing through music, sight in expressive looks, taste through wine and food, touch by the gesture of the seductress, and smell through the nose, which the old woman appears to be pointing to. Special attention is paid to the table, where a basket of fruit is clearly visible. This element combines with the others in a sort of pastiche, the figurative motifs borrowed from famous Caravaggesque works, which also influenced the neutral choice of background.

View Short Description

Gerrit Van Honthorst, called Gherardo delle Notti, absorbed the influence of Caravaggio during his stay in Italy (1610–1620). The subject, the composition, the still life on the table, the light falling on the left, all are quotations from Caravaggio's works.

How Object was obtained:

The Borghese Collection was acquired by the Italian State in 1902.

Selected bibliography:

Della Pergola, P., Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Rome, 1959, n. 239, pp. 165–166.
Economopoulos, H., in I colori della musica. Dipinti, strumenti e concerti tra Cinquecento e Seicento, exhibition catalogue (Rome), Milan, 2000, cat. 48, pp. 216–217.
Herrmann Fiore, K., in Degustazioni d'arte. Enologia mitica, spirituale, simbolica e metafisica nelle collezioni pubbliche di Roma, Rome, 2003, pp. 58–59.

Additional Copyright Information:

Copyright image: Archivio fotografico Soprintendenza Speciale PSAE e Polo Museale della Città di Roma.

Citation of this web page:

Sofia Barchiesi "The Concert" in "Discover Baroque Art", Museum With No Frontiers, 2024. https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;BAR;it;Mus11;18;en

Prepared by: Sofia BarchiesiSofia Barchiesi

SURNAME: Barchiesi
NAME: Sofia

TITLE: Author and Researcher

CV:
Sofia Barchiesi, a graduate and specialist in Art History and recipient of a scholarship from the School of Mediaeval and Modern Art History at Lumsa University, has been working with the Superintendency for Historical Artistic Heritage and the Museums of Rome since the late 1980s. She was responsible for cataloguing the art of the region and museums of Rome, studying the period of the Counter-Reformation particularly closely. She works with journals and writes essays, alternating her research and teaching work.

Translation by: Laurence Nunny
Translation copyedited by: Mandi GomezMandi Gomez

Amanda Gomez is a freelance copy-editor and proofreader working in London. She studied Art History and Literature at Essex University (1986–89) and received her MA (Area Studies Africa: Art, Literature, African Thought) from SOAS in 1990. She worked as an editorial assistant for the independent publisher Bellew Publishing (1991–94) and studied at Bookhouse and the London College of Printing on day release. She was publications officer at the Museum of London until 2000 and then took a role at Art Books International, where she worked on projects for independent publishers and arts institutions that included MWNF’s English-language editions of the books series Islamic Art in the Mediterranean. She was part of the editorial team for further MWNF iterations: Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean Virtual Museum and the illustrated volume Discover Islamic Art in the Mediterranean.

True to its ethos of connecting people through the arts, MWNF has provided Amanda with valuable opportunities for discovery and learning, increased her editorial experience, and connected her with publishers and institutions all over the world. More recently, the projects she has worked on include MWNF’s Sharing History Virtual Museum and Exhibition series, Vitra Design Museum’s Victor Papanek and Objects of Desire, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s online publication 2 or 3 Tigers and its volume Race, Nation, Class.

MWNF Working Number: IT1 22

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