MAGNASCO, ALESSANDRO

THE NUNS' REPAST

This canvas belongs to the so-called monastic series, which occupied an important place in the work of this artist during his second period in Milan. From among the works in this series mention should be made of The Convent and his Scene with Monks, which forms a pair with it and is held in the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt. They were painted in a free flowing manner and the flesh colour used is of a reddish-brown tone typical for this artist, while the compositions are built up in such a way that the groups of figures (as a rule there are relatively few of them) gradually fade into the brownish-grey background, sometimes appearing to be shrouded in smoke.

Provenance: Forshtetter Collection (Moscow); 1923 transferred from the State Museums Foundation to the Russian Museum; in the Pushkin Museum since 1924.