Pulcinella plays the guitar and Pulcinella with Pulcinellino - SOLD

"This brilliant and evocative pair of small paintings depicting Pulcinella playing the guitar and Pulcinella with Pulcinellino can be attributed to the brush of Alessandro Magnasco (Genoa 1667-1749)," so reads the study accompanying the two canvases. In the monograph dedicated to the Genoese painter published in 1949, Benno Geiger mentions a pair of works similar to the one preserved in Venice in the Gatti-Casazza collection, later also reported by Antonio Morassi, very likely referring to these two paintings. Created as pendants between 1721 and 1723, they take up the figure of Pulcinella, one of the most emblematic masks of Italian theatre, a symbol of the poor but cunning people, capable of adapting and surviving any circumstance. With fluid and rapid strokes, Magnasco manages to characterize the figures at the center of the scene with fine irony, highlighting their weaknesses and vices through his unmistakable pictorial synthesis. Two works of great charm. Dimensions: canvas 36 x 31.5 cm