Pair of folk art dressed pictures (habille), each depicting a peasant rendered in bits of fabric and standing within a gouache landscape.

Continental c. 1780
14.5" x 11.5"

SOLD  

Email us about this item

Condition: Fine condition. Light staining to the paper and minor chips to the frames. Wear as expected with age.

__________________________________________________________________________________
Little is written about folk art dressed pictures, but they appear to have been made throughout Continental Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Subject matter varies widely, from depictions of wealthy elites to rural peasants. Faces and hands are usually rendered in gouache and glued on. The backgrounds, usually outdoor scenes, are also gouache, although elaborate interior scenes have been recorded.

The subject of the rural peasant was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries, Jusepe de Ribera's "The Club-Footed Boy", painted in 1642 in Naples and now hanging in the Louvre, being one of the most famous examples. (See photo nearby.) Ribera's boy, like the two adults, stands in the foreground of a sparse landscape with a low horizon line. All three are depicted sympathetically, intended to evoke the Christian sense of charity. (The Latin inscription on the boy's scrap of paper translates, "Give me alms, for the love of God".)