Actors
Artist
French
Datelate 1500s
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFrame: 56 5/16 x 69 1/8 x 3 3/4 in. (143 x 175.5 x 9.5 cm)
Image: 46 9/16 x 58 1/4 in. (118.3 x 147.9 cm)
Image: 46 9/16 x 58 1/4 in. (118.3 x 147.9 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineMuseum purchase, 1955
Object numberSN688
Two gypsy prostitutes trick a zanni, a common buffoon character in seventeenth-century theater, identifiable by his mask. One gypsy distracts him with conversation while the other reaches for his purse; at teh left is a procuress with a child. The wily woman duping the innocent man was a popular theme in the theater and visual arts of this period. A seventeenth-century viewer would easily have recognized it as a moralizing warning against the dangers of corruption and sin.
On View
Not on view
last quarter of 1600s or first quarter of 1700s
