The Age of Pleasure and Enlightenment European art of the ...

Giovanni Battista PiazzettaItalian, Venetian, 1683–1754Boy with a Pear, c. 1740Oil on canvasThe Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1944.34andGirl with a Ring Biscuit, c. 1740Oil on canvasPurchased in honor of Jean K. Cadogan with funds raised, and the Ella Gallup Sumner and MaryCatlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1997.22.1Throughout his career, the Venetian painter Piazzetta produced half-length figures such as thisboy and girl. The subject of this pair is the interchange between the hopeful youth offering hisfruit, and the young lady who seems to discourage his advances. In fact these paintings probablyillustrate popular eighteenth-century Italian idioms. The phrase “cascare come pera cotta” (“tofall like a cooked pear”) meant to fall in love, while the proverb “Non tutte le ciambelle riesconocon buco” (“not all ring biscuits are made with holes”) implied that all does not turn out well.Attributed to Charles Joseph FlipartFrench, 1721–1797Portrait of the Castrato Carlo Scalzi, c. 1738Oil on canvasThe Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1938.177Opera flourished in the eighteenth century, and was performed all over Europe, both in privatecourt theaters and later in large public opera houses. As the audience for opera expanded, light orcomic operas, which came from humble beginnings, began to flourish alongside serious or tragicopera.This portrait is thought to represent the eighteenth-century Italian opera singer Carlo Scalzi, oneof the most famous male sopranos or castrati. It has been debated whether Signor Scalzi isrepresented here as a character from Leonardo Vinci's opera Artaserse (1730–31) or from NicoloPopora's Sirbace (1737). In either case, his costume is a European interpretation of Persian dress,very much an eighteenth-century operatic fantasy.