Autumn

c. 1740/1750

Corrado Giaquinto

Painter, Italian, 1703 - 1766

Nine men and women and three pudgy, toddler-aged children gather in small groups under a copse of trees against a deep landscape in this horizontal painting. Most of the people have pale, nearly white skin and a few have darker, peach-toned skin. They all have rosy cheeks, and most have strawberry or honey blond hair. The men and women wear loose robes in shades of topaz and ice blue, vibrant peach, pale pink, or harvest yellow, and the children appear to be nude. Light pours across the scene from the left. Two women sit in the lower left corner of the composition, mostly in shadow presumably created by trees outside our view. One leans toward us holding a tray of fruit with her dress nearly exposing her round breasts. A woman sitting closer to us holds up a fig as a child reaches for the fruit. Closer to us, a muscular man sits on the ground next to an urn the size of a backpack. One child next to the urn sits almost with their back as he holds up a cup, and a gold-colored horn hangs from a ribbon across the torso. Another child other leans forward closer to the man, a bunch of grapes held in both hands. A pile of grape vines with grapes and orange-colored fruit sits between the man and first child. Behind this trio, one woman picks fruit from a leafy tree, which has a grape vine growing around its thick trunk. Another woman sits in the shade of the tree and looks on, a piece of fruit in her hand. The final four people are gathered to the right, where one man supports another who leans limply away from us, one arm slung over his supporter’s shoulders. The partially prone man is bare-chested and wears a crown of grapevine leaves. More leaves are around his waist under a vivid, coral-red cloth, and his feet rest on a pile of figs, fruit, and grapes. A third man in this trio is the only one with a beard. He wears a cheetah animal skin and presses grapes in both hands to fill the cup held by the prone man. A woman stands between the pair, holding more grapes and looking off into the distance. Trees and bushes grow across the left half of the composition, and a distant landscape on the right half opens onto rolling hills and hazy mountains. The sky glows peach along the horizon and deepens to twilight blue across the top half of the painting.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

A leading exponent of the rococo school that flourished in Rome during the first half of the eighteenth century, Corrado Giaquinto—a kind of "Italian Boucher"—was trained in Naples. The baroque style that Giaquinto formed there took on a lighter tone after he moved to Rome in 1727, where he specialized in painting altarpieces and large decorative ensembles. In Rome his style also became more classicizing, and the kind of elegant sophistication that marks Giaquinto's mature works soon established his international reputation. Accordingly, he was invited to become court painter to King Ferdinand VI in Madrid, where he remained until returning to Italy in 1762 four years before his death. In Madrid Giaquinto painted decorative cycles glorifying the Spanish monarchy that are a direct precedent for those of his successor, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (whose 1762 Wealth and Benefits of the Spanish Monarchy is in the Gallery's collection).

Autumn represents the god Bacchus and other mythological figures lounging in a lush landscape. Dating from the artist's mature period, the 1740s, this work is in almost perfect condition. The painting forms part of a series of four allegories of the seasons: Winter also belongs to the Gallery's Italian baroque collection, while the canvases representing spring and summer are known today only through photographs. Both Gallery paintings, particularly Autumn, with its air of overripe, languid elegance, are superb examples of Giaquinto's art.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 32


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of the Rizik Family

  • Dimensions

    overall: 108.4 x 151.5 cm (42 11/16 x 59 5/8 in.)
    framed: 132.1 x 175.7 x 10.2 cm (52 x 69 3/16 x 4 in.)

  • Accession

    2001.123.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Comte d'Arthois, Paris.[1] (Metropolitan Galleries, New York), in 1931-1932.[2] (Nicholas M. Acquavella Galleries, New York), in 1938.[3] (Dr. Siegfried F. Aram, New York), in 1941.[4] Purchased by the Rizik family, Washington, D.C.;[5] gift 2001 to NGA.
[1] According to the 1941 exhibition catalogue (see note 4), the set of four paintings by Giaquinto, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, was formerly in this collection.
[2] Metropolitan Galleries lent the four paintings to a 1931 exhibition in Birmingham, Alabama, and included the paintings in a 1932 exhibition in their own galleries.
[3] Acquavella Galleries lent the four paintings to a 1938 exhibition in Memphis.
[4] This dealer was Dr. Siegfried F. Aram, a German lawyer-turned-art collector and dealer, who left Nazi Germany and had a gallery on 57th Street in New York until the early 1950s (see his letter of 3 June 1955 to Dr. Edgar P. Richardson, Archives of American Art, Edgar Preston Richardson Papers, Box 1: Special Correspondence A-B, Folder: Aram, Siegfried; copy in NGA curatorial files). Aram lent the four paintings to an exhibition in San Francisco in 1941.
[5] All four paintings were purchased from a New York dealer, probably Aram, by Philip Rizik's father, who died in 1953, at which time the paintings passed with the elder Rizik's estate to his widow. When she died in 1978, her estate passed in equal shares to the Rizik's seven children. Philip, Jacqueline, and Maxine Rizik chose by mutual agreement joint ownership of the set of Qiaquinto paintings.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1931

  • Exhibition of Italian Art, Birmingham Public Library, Alabama, 1931.

1932

  • Exhibition of Italian Paintings of the 16th, 17th & 18th Centuries, Metropolitan Galleries, New York, 1932.

1938

  • Cotton Festival, New Orleans, 1938.

  • Fourth Fine Arts Exhibition, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, 1938, no. 15.

1940

  • San Diego Museum of Fine Arts, 1940.

1941

  • Exhibition of Italian Baroque Painting, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1941, no. 50, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20177917


You may be interested in

Loading Results