DARK INTERIOR WITH GROUP LYING ON THE FLOOR (INTERNO CON PITOCCHI) Oil on canvas. 61 x 59 cm. Accompanied by an expertise by Anna Orlando, Genoa, December 2023 (there further references and image comparisons). Magnasco shows here a bizarre juxtaposition of figures from the poorest population, huddled together on the floor of a high, dark room with a high window through which hardly any light penetrates. Playing cards on the floor show the idleness caused by poverty. Below the group is a musician with a bassoon, another in a suit of armor with a tobacco pipe, behind him a young woman whose naked child is being held by a man. On the left a man mending a dress. A little higher up, an old man in a tall cap is holding his hand up in a pontificating manner. Magnasco depicts impoverished representatives of several population groups, including both musicians and soldiers. The contemporary term "pitocchi" is reminiscent of the lice that plagued this destitute group. Magnasco is one of the most astonishing figures in late Baroque Italian painting. It is not only his dark coloring and his Mannerist conception of figures, but above all his choice of subject matter that sets him apart from his contemporaries. His paintings illuminate a parallel world, separated from bourgeois and courtly society, sunk in misery and poverty. A.R. Magnasco belongs to the Italian late Baroque period. As the son of an artist, he studied under Abbiati in Milan in 1681/82. As a "figurista", he used staffage figures in landscapes by colleagues. In 1703, he worked together with Francesco Peruzzini at the Medici court in Florence, but returned to Genoa in 1735. He now produced paintings with unusual subjects, including scenes of inquisition and torture, beggars and carnies. He was therefore interested in documenting the poverty and misery of his time. His work was only rediscovered in the 20th century after Benno Geiger published a monograph in 1914. This was followed by exhibitions in Berlin, Munich, Cologne and Paris. Alfred Flechtheim saw him as a forerunner of modernism. Literature: Cf. Benno Geiger, Alessandro Magnasco, Berlin 1914. Cf. Fausta Franchini Guelfi, Magnasco, Alessandro, in: Mario Caravale (ed.), Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI), vol. 67, Rome 2006. Cf. Laura Muti, De Sarno Prignano, Alessandro Magnasco, Faenza 1994 (1401694) (11) Alessandro Magnasco, also known as "Il Lissandrino", ca. 1667 Genoa - 1749 ibid. DARK INTERIOR WITH GROUP LYING ON THE GROUND (INTERNO CON PITOCCHI) Oil on canvas. 61 x 59 cm. Accompanied by an expert's report by Anna Orlando, Genoa, December 2023 (with further references and image comparisons). His paintings shed a light on a parallel world of misery and poverty in stark contrast to the bourgeois and courtly society. Literature: Benno Geiger, Alessandro Magnasco, Berlin 1914. Fausta Franchini Guelfi, Magnasco, Alessandro, in: Mario Caravale (ed.), Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI), vol. 67: Macchi-Malaspina. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2006. Laura Muti, Daniele de Sarno Prignano, Alessandro Magnasco, Faenza 1994.