Gaspare Traversi
Gaspare Traversi 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, also a genre painter, and Francesco de Mura. He was active mainly between 1732–1769.
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
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 | - | |
| The Scribe | Galleria Estense, Modena | - | ||
| Monaco di Baviera | Private collection, Modena | - | ||
| Maternal Orgoglio | Private collection, Modena | |||
| Saints Lucia, Agatha & Apollonia | Cathedral, Parma | - | ||
| 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 | - | ||
| The concert | Private collection, Parma | - | ||
| Saint Francis receives stigmata | Santa Maria di Campagna, Piacenza | - | ||
| Mandola player | Pinacoteca D'Errico, Matera | - | ||
| Child with wine glass and flask | Pinacoteca D'Errico, Matera | - | ||
| Music Lesson | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City | - | ||
| 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 | - | ||
| The Secret Letter | Museo Pignatelli, Naples | - | ||
| Musical entertainment | Museo Pignatelli, Naples | - | ||
| Maternity | Private collection, Naples | - | ||
| Concert with Mandolin Player | Private collection, Naples | - | ||
| 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 | 1752 | San Paolo fuori le mura, Rome | - | |
| 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 | Chiesa di San Rocco, Borgotaro | - | ||
| Mourning over Dead Christ | Museo della Collegiata, Castell’Arquato near Parma | - | ||
| Christ mocked | ibid | - | ||
| Ecce Homo | ibid | . | - | |
| Posing for Portrait | 1754 | Louvre, Paris | - | |
| Gian Lorenzo Berti | c. 1754–1756 | Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg | - | |
| The Laugh | 1754 | - | ||
| The Wound | 1752 | Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice | - | |
| The Surgery | Staatsgalerie Stuttgart | - | ||
| The Card Party | Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen | - | ||
| The Concert | Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen | - | ||
| Self-portrait | Seattle | - | ||
| Teasing a Sleeping Girl | Metropolitan Museum, New York City | - | ||
| Saint Margaret of Cortona | c. 1758 | Metropolitan Museum, New York City | - | |
| Portrait of a Man | Metropolitan Museum, New York City | - |