Image: Museo delle Porcellane, Florence
The Uffizi has highlighted Giuseppe Maria Crespi’s ‘La sguattera’ in a video and social-media post, drawing attention to the painting’s domestic scene. Dated around 1725 and designated in the post as ‘#Uffizi’, the work shows a woman engaged in household tasks.
The museum’s brief description concentrates on the objects around her: an abundance of crockery frames the figure, while a muted beam of light falls across the dishes. The emphasis gives the post a close, object-rich account of the painted setting without departing from the woman’s work.
Crespi’s treatment is summed up in the Uffizi’s statement that, in his hands, everyday life becomes art. The spotlight is not an announcement of an exhibition or acquisition, but a focused return to one painting and its scene of domestic labour.
Elsewhere, the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna has described Crespi’s ‘Scena di cortile’ as an ironic and popular work in its presentation of eighteenth-century Emilian painting.
