MIEL, Jan
(b. 1599, Beveren-Was, d. 1663, Torino)

Dance in the Trattoria

1647-49
Oil on canvas, 51 x 67 cm
Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna

This painting is an example of the Bambocciata painted by Dutch artists in Rome. (Bambocciata: genre scene of popular life in the suburbs of Rome made popular by the Netherlandish painter Pieter van Laer, known in Italy as Il Bamboccio.) A Genoese nobleman commissioned Miel to paint scenes from the Roman carnival for his Roman apartment. In this canvas the painter set the popular characters of the Comedia dell'Arte in a small trattoria.