(Taverna 1613–1699 Valetta)
(Taverna 1603–1672 Rome)
Concertino with a clavicord player; and
Concertino with a violin player,
oil on canvas, each 95 x 131.5 cm, framed, a pair

Provenance:
Private collection, Italy

Exhibited (Concertino with a clavicord player):
San Secondo di Pinerolo, Castello di Miradolo, Caravaggio e il suo tempo, 21 November 2015 – 10 April 2016, no. 26 (as Mattia Preti);
Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Palazzo Corsini, Mattia Preti. Un giovane nella Roma dopo Caravaggio, 28 October 2015 – 18 January 2016 (as Mattia Preti)

Literature (Concertino with a clavicord player):
G. Leone, in: V. Sgarbi (ed.), Caravaggio e il suo tempo, exhibition catalogue, San Secondo di Pinerolo 2015, pp. 124–127, no. 26 (as Mattia Preti);
G. Leone (ed.), Mattia Preti. Un giovane nella Roma dopo Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Soveria Mannelli 2015, p. 135, no. 60, p. 144 ill. (as Mattia Preti);
Y. Primarosa, in: Il trionfo dei sensi. Nuova luce su Mattia e Gregorio Preti, exhibition catalogue, ed. by Y. Primarosa, Rome 2019, mentioned on p. 22, p. 23 fig. 17 (probably by Mattia Preti and workshop or a collaboration with Gregorio Preti).

The present paintings are amongst the earliest works executed by Mattia Preti in Rome, at the time when he was painting alongside and very closely with his brother Gregorio Preti during the early 1630s. There are no known contemporary documents for the present paintings, but their size and typology suggest that they were commissioned together as quadri di galleria. Compostions of this type were popular with private patrons in Rome who collected Caravaggist scenes of taverns, concertini, and gambling (sometimes within religious subjects) placed in settings with chiaroscuro lighting. Both these works are important examples of Mattia Preti’s oeuvre, also because of the connection of the Concertino with a clavicord player with the most impressive of his early pictures, the monumental Concert (or Music lesson) in the Galleria Doria Pamphilij, Rome (measurements 245 x 410 cm).

The Concertino with a violin player is previously unpublished: The Concertino with a clavicord player was first published by Giorgio Leone (see literature) who dates the work to circa 1638–1639, whilst Keith Sciberras believes it to belongs to an early date of 1630-1635.

The date of Mattia Preti´s arrival in Rome has not been fully established and the first reference to him in the city dates to the period 1633–36. Here the young artist could have drawn inspiration from a variety of artistic sources, but he essentially moved towards ‘naturalism’ of Caravaggio. He was influenced by the work of Caravaggist artists who had been working in Rome in the second decade of the seventeenth century. This influence also came from his brother Gregorio, who painted in a caravaggesque manner. The Preti brothers admired the early works of Jusepe de Ribera, Bartolomeo Manfredi, and Valentin de Boulogne. Within this context, Mattia was one of the youngest of the artists to be influenced by this style of painting and his generation became the last to show a strong adherence to it. Pictures such as the present compostion in effect closed the caravaggist chapter in Rome.

The quality of the Concertino with a clavicord player indicates that Mattia was largely responsible for its execution and, even though there is proximity to the work of Gregorio, it should be placed within the first corpus of independent works produced by the younger brother. Set on a frontal plane and occupying most of the picture space, three half-length figures form a horizontally laid closely-knit group in which an old man in sumptuous clothing appears distracted as a young lady plays the clavicord and a boy sings. The narrative of the work is particularly is unclear as he man does not seem to be particularly aware of the music being played and sung besides him and the female musician turns in a slight contrapposto and looks out at the spectator. The compostion may refer to a moral theme: The compostion relates to a larger and more complex painting in the Galleria Doria Pamphilij. Rome. The three figures are also in the latter picture and appear fused into a new narrative. The proximity of the man and the lady is the same but, in the larger picture, the young boy is positioned further to the right and accompanied by another singer.

A red chalk and wash drawing for a Concertino, conserved at the Cabinet des Dessins, Musee du Louvre, Paris, is linked to another compact version of the Doria Pamphilij Concert. This drawing, however, shows a broadly laid out five-figure group and the painting for it, if ever executed, is unknown.

It has been suggested that the Concertino with a violin player is a work Mattia executed with the assistance of his brother Gregorio. However, according to Sciberras, specific attributions to either one or the other of the Preti brothers remain questionable during this period because of the proximity of their work, such as the Dice Players in the National Museum, Krakow.

The present Concertino with a violin player shows a dark setting, strongly illuminated by light coming from the left. A boy plays the violin whilst a young lady on the other side of the compostion holds up the musical score. A bearded older man, wearing a turban and placed in the center between them, gesticulates at the lady and raises a rolled-up paper, possibly another score, with his right hand. The violin player is well-dressed, with a white ruff collar shirt over which is a brown cape collar with a scalloped edge. The style of dress is typical of the period, as is the dress and hairstyle of the female figure.

Both compositions display an interest in the depictions of the natural
world with depictions of real characters modelled in strong light and shade. Paintings such as the Game of Draughts in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, or the Concertino pictures in the Palazzo Comunale, Alba; or the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg or the Fondazione Longhi, Florence) and the aforementioned monumental Concert in the Galleria Dorija Pamphilij show an attachment to a typology which became known as the Manfrediana Methodus and can be easily compared with Manfredi’s and Valentin de Boulogne’s pictures of similar objects.