A Laughing Man
A Laughing Man
- Artist
- Giuseppe Bazzani
- Artist Dates
- 1690-1769
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- A Laughing Man
- Date
- c. 1735
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 76.2 x 61.6 cm (30 x 24-1/4 in)
- K Number
- K344
- Repository
- Museum of Art and Archaeology
- Accession Number
- 61.72
- Notes
Provenance
(Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 10 July 1935; gift to the National Gallery in 1939; deaccessioned in 1952 and returned to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; gift to Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, no. 61.72.
Catalogue Entry
Giuseppe Bazzani
A Laughing Man
K344
Columbia, Mo., University of Missouri, Study Collection (61.72), since 1961.(1) Canvas. 30 X 24 1/4 in. (76.2 X 61.6 cm.). Good condition except for abrasions in face. Like Bazzani's Incredulity of St. Thomas (K1266; Fig. 228), K344 probably dates from the artist's early maturity, about 1735.(2) The subject has been interpreted as a buffoon or comedian(3) and as an imbecile.(4) The suggestion that K344 is a fragment(5) is not very convincing: the composition does not seem incomplete, and the gaze of the young man is directed out of the picture, toward the spectator, rather than toward a missing part of the composition. Provenance: Contini Bonacossi, Florence – exhibited: 'Il Settecento Italiano,' Venice, 1929, p. 45 of catalogue, as Bazzani; 'Mostra Retrospettiva del Bazzani,' Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, May 1933, no. 25 of catalogue by N. Giannantoni, as Lo Scemo, by Bazzani. Kress acquisition, 1935 – exhibited: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (301), 1941-52.(6)
References
(1) F. R. Shapley, in Missouri Alumnus, vol. XLIX, no. 8, 1961, p.4, as Bazzani. (2) K344 has been attributed to Bazzani by R. Longhi, R. van Marle, A. L. Mayer, F. M. Perkins, W. E. Suida, A. Venturi (in ms. opinions), G. Fiocco (La Pittura veneziana alla mostra del settecento, n.d. [1929/30?], p. 48), U. Ojetti, G. Fogolari, and others. (Il Settecento italiano, 1932, pl. III) , N. Ivanoff (catalogue of the exhibition 'Bazzani,' Casa del Mantegna, Mantua, May 14-Oct. 15, 1950, p. 79; although included in this catalogue, K344 was not shown at this exhibition), and R. Wittkower (Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600 to 1750, 1958, pl. 181A, dating it c. 1740). (3) Loc. cit. in note 6, below. (4) See Giannantoni, in catalogue cited in Provenance; also Wittkower (loc. cit. in note 2, above), and Ivanoff (loc. cit. in note 2, above). (5) Ivanoff, ibid. (6) Preliminary Catalogue, 1941, p. 18, as Bazzani, c. 1730.