''The Italian Brigand's Wife'' is an 1826

genre painting Genre painting (or petit genre) is the painting of genre art, which depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity ca ...

by the French

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

Léon Cogniet Léon Cogniet (29 August 1794 – 20 November 1880) was a French history and portrait painter. He is probably best remembered as a teacher, with more than one hundred notable students. Biography He was born in Paris. His father was a painter ...

. It depicts the wife a

brigand Brigandage is the life and practice of highway robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery.Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first record ...

in the hills of

Southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

, examining the plundered goods of a traveller including a length of

silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

which she holds up for inspection. Depictions of Italian outlaws were a common theme in

romantic art Romanticism in the visual arts, originating in the 1760s, marked a shift towards depicting wild landscapes and dramatic scenes, reflecting a departure from classical artistic norms. This movement emphasized the sublime beauty of nature, the inte ...

of the era. Cogniet produced it as a pendant piece for a painting by his friend Achille-Etna Michallon depicting a brigand chief. Cogniet produced three versions of the painting during 1825 to 1826, possibly anticipating exhibiting one at the Salon of 1827. One of them is now in the collection of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

.https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438633

References

Bibliography

* Miller, Asher Ethan. ''The Path of Nature: French Paintings from the Wheelock Whitney Collection 1785-1850''. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013. * Wrigley, Richard (ed.) ''Regarding Romantic Rome''. Peter Lang, 2007. Paintings by Léon Cogniet 1826 paintings Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Genre paintings Oil on canvas paintings {{1820s-painting-stub

See also

References

Bibliography