Jacopo Amigoni (? c. 1685-1752 Madrid)
Jacopo Amigoni (? c. 1685-1752 Madrid)

The Chimney-Sweeper's Boy

Details
Jacopo Amigoni (? c. 1685-1752 Madrid)
The Chimney-Sweeper's Boy
oil on canvas
49½ x 40½ in. (125.7 x 102.8 cm.)
Provenance
Carlo Maria Broschi, Farinelli (1705-1782), Bologna, by 1770 (when seen by Charles Burney).
The Duke of Leeds, Hornby Castle, Bedale (according to an old label on the reverse).
Literature
C. Burney, The Present State of Music in France and Italy, London, 1771, p. 214.
F. Boris and G. Cammarota, 'La collezione di Carlo Broschi detto Farinelli', Accademia Clementina. Atti e Memorie, XXVII, 1990, pp. 183-250, no. 34.
A.S. Sonino, Jacopo Amigoni, Soncino, 1994, p. 37.
Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters, 1877, as 'Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.' (according to a label on the reverse).
Engraved
George Childs, London Street Life, c. 1750

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Lot Essay

The present painting is recorded in the 1783 inventory of the famous singer Carlo Broschi, who was known as Farinelli (transcribed by F. Boris, op. cit.): number 34, and its pendant (35), reads: 'Due quadri nella loro cornice indorata rappresentano, il primo uno Spazzacamino, l'altro una Venditrice di pomi di mano dell'Amiconi. Figura intiera al naturale, alti P.3: O.4 larghi P.2: O.7 L.200'. The apple vendor was engraved by Wagner with the title Golden Pippins, along with two other genre pictures representing a shoeshiner and a lamplighter around 1739.

Childs' engraving of the present painting includes the following poem:
Some BOYS delight in Birds, some Beasts;
Most Men in Women, and in Feasts;
Just as the Passions move the Mind,
In this-or that-Amusement find;
Not FARINELLI's tuneful Voice,
Could make the Boy so much rejoice.
As griping of the Kitten's Back,
To make those Mew upon the Sack.
The Foible of the Boy here shewn,
Bespeaks a Pleasure of his Own:
And hence may Sages cease Surprize,
From little Trifles Pleasures Rise.

We are grateful to Dr. Annalisa Scarpa for confirming the attribution to Amigoni, on the basis of photographs (private communication, 6 December 2011) and for her assistance in cataloguing this lot. Dr. Scarpa dates the painting to before 1737.

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