CRESPI, Giuseppe Maria
(b. 1665, Bologna, d. 1747, Bologna)

The Scullery Maid

c. 1725
Oil on canvas, 52 x 43 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Giuseppe Maria Crespi's genre painting often touched on intimate domestic moments. This painting is from his Florentine period. Thanks to Duke Ferdinand de' Medici's patronage he had been able to make direct contact with Magnasco and to get to know Flemish painting. But he went beyond these influences in the delicate way he defined the light which reveals the objects in the kitchen to the viewer one by one.

Since the modern rediscovery of Giuseppe Maria Crespi, this unpretentious interior where nothing is happening except the washing of dishes, has been considered one of Crespi's best, an Italian equivalent to the domestic scenes of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin.