Crespi's Gambling Children and a New Drawing in Norwich

• Autores: Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius
• Localización: Burlington magazine, ISSN 0007-6287, Vol. 140, Nº 1146, 1998, págs. 604-611
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The remarkably small group of surviving drawings by Giuseppe Maria Crespi can now be augmented with a red- chalk study in the Castle Museum at Norwich (Fig. 11), here published for the first time.' It shows a group of urchins playing 'cappelletto'', an Italian game of chance similar to the common wager known in English as 'Heads or Tails': the cappelletto or hat is used to toss the coins and then to cover them, ensuring fair play.2 The drawing is a preparatory study for one of a pair of etchings by Crespi of children gambling, the other of which shows boys throwing dice (Figs. 13 and 14).3 The Norwich drawing marks the first appearance in Crespi's work of the game of cappelletto, a theme which recurs in both his prints and his paintings during the first two decades of the eighteenth century, but has never been the object of particular study.4 The purpose of this article is thus not only to present a new work by Crespi in Britain, but also to analyse the ways in which the subject of this plebeian game evolved in Crespi's art.