Provenance
(Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome), by 1928;[1] purchased 1930 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] The painting is identified as being in the collection of Count Contini in Rome by Victor Lasareff, "Studies on Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Part One," _Art in America_ XVII, no. 1 (December 1928): 17, fig. 3.
[2] The bill of sale between Contini Bonacossi and the Kress Foundation that includes this painting is dated 30 September 1930. The painting is described as "Hunting Scene by G.B. Crespi," and notes indicate it was credited for return to Contini Bonacossi on 13 September 1931, but was bought back in 1932, when it is listed again on a bill of 4 March. Neither bill indicates any prior provenance information; see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/634. (Copies of the bills of sale are in NGA curatorial files.)
Accession Number
1939.1.62
Medium
oil on copper
Dimensions
overall: 52.4 x 75.5 cm (20 5/8 x 29 3/4 in.) | framed: 71.1 x 93.7 x 7.6 cm (28 x 36 7/8 x 3 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Copper Italian Color: Yellow Color: Teal
Background & Context
Background Story
Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665-1747), called Lo Spagnolo, was a Bolognese painter known for the combination of Baroque drama and genre subject that distinguishes his work from the more academic Bolognese tradition. Cupids Disarming Sleeping Nymphs from c. 1690-1705 depicts a mythological subject in the dramatic chiaroscuro and painterly technique that Crespi learned from the Bolognese Baroque tradition but applied to subjects that are more intimate and genre-like than the grand manner of Baroque history painting. The c. 1690-1705 date places this in Crespi's most productive period, when he was producing the genre subjects and intimate mythologies that are his most accomplished works.
Cultural Impact
Cupids Disarming Sleeping Nymphs is important in Crespi's oeuvre because it demonstrates the combination of Baroque drama and genre intimacy that distinguishes his work from the more academic Bolognese tradition. The mythological subject is treated with the intimacy and genre detail that Crespi brought to all his subjects, creating a type of mythological painting that is simultaneously grand and domestic—a combination that anticipates the Rococo manner of the 18th century.
Why It Matters
Cupids Disarming Sleeping Nymphs is Crespi's Baroque drama meets genre intimacy: a mythological subject rendered with the chiaroscuro and painterly technique of the Baroque but the intimacy of genre painting. The c. 1690-1705 painting anticipates the Rococo manner in combining grand subjects with domestic detail.
![Young Peasant Seated on the Ground [recto]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/bb9bb4e1-e23e-4d56-8943-42ef11ecde4a/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
