(Brussels 1618–1664 Goa)
Man offering a child food,
oil on canvas, 66.5 x 50.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Peter C. Sutton for endorsing the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph.

We are also grateful to Laura Laureati for independently endorsing the attribution on the basis of a photograph.

The present composition shows a scene of everyday life. In the distance an arch by which two figures pause can be made out; beyond the arch, on the left, figures can be seen seated on the steps of a building, intent on eating a meal given them in charity by friars; in the foreground a man surrounded by companions holds a bowl from which a child eats, on the left a man with a red cap lowers his head.

The themes of poverty and charity were familiar to the Flemish painter Michael Sweerts who depicted the poor with pity, to which he added a sense of participation in their suffering, as demonstrated by the diary note of a missionary who met the painter in Amsterdam in 1661: ‘[Sweerts] digiunava quasi ogni giorno e divideva i suoi beni tra i poveri’ [‘(Sweerts) fasted every day and he shared his goods among the poor’] (see G. Briganti, L. Trezzani, L. Laureati [eds.], I Bamboccianti, Rome 1983, p. 313).

This painting belongs to the artist’s Italian period and was painted during his sojourn in the second half of the 1640s. Indeed, there are notable stylistic, compositional and thematic analogies with other works made by Sweerts in Rome. Among these are the Old man drinking in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome (inv. no. IP 391) in which the artist appears to use the same model for the bearded man in the foreground of the present painting, altering only his pose and replacing the flask of wine he holds with the terracotta bowl seen here. The same figure and pictorial accoutrements also appear in the Buona Ventura or Good Fortune, also from the artist’s Roman period, conserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nîmes (see R. Kultzen, op. cit. Ghent 1996, p. 92, cat. no. 17). In that painting only two figures are represented, while in the present composition attention is paid to the setting which also plays an important role in the scene.

Michael Sweerts was born in Brussels in 1618 where he is registered as having been baptised in the church of Saint Nicholas. Little is known regarding his training as a painter. The first document for his biography dates to 1646 when he was registered in the parish of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, aged 28. This document also tells us that he shared his lodgings with another painter. He became a member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome and counted Prince Camillo Pamphilj, the nephew of Pope Innocent X amongst his patrons. He returned to the Low Countries in 1652 establishing himself in Brussels in 1656, where he founded a drawing school. In 1660 he spent a brief period in Amsterdam. He subsequently departed for China as a Catholic missionary in 1662. He only reached Goa where he remained with the Jesuits, dying there in 1664.

Sweerts was a versatile artist and his paintings reveal the influences of both the Northern and Southern European schools of painting. His compositions were frequently inspired by street scenes and daily life, such as is apparent in the present painting. He was also inspired by classical antiquity as all’antica architectural settings can be noted in some of his works, while in others he depicts plaster or marble statues.