Gaetano Chierici

Private collector, United States (acquired directly from the artist's studio)
Thence by descent to the present owner

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is recently restored. The canvas is lined. The paint layer is cleaned and retouched. There are a few isolated retouches in the dark background above and to the right of the figures, in the chair beneath the figure on the left, in the screen in the far left and in the floor beneath the chair. The painting is completely unabraded and very fresh. The slightly worn feeling to the screen on the left is intentional by the artist.
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Chierici was among the most celebrated Italian genre painters of the nineteenth century and Joys of Childhood is a perfect example of his images of children at play. He was the master of capturing the fleeting expression, usually happiness or surprise, and of attention to detail. Often, as in the present work, the setting for his paintings was the farmhouse kitchen and its contents, a choice no doubt influenced by his own experiences growing up in a poor family. Like J.G. Brown in America, he liked to show that happiness was not dependent on material wealth, depicting humble children as cheerful, healthy, and delighting in life.

Born in Reggio, Chierici began his formal training at the Academies of Reggio and Bologna. In 1858 he moved to Florence, where he enrolled at the Academy's scuola del nudo to develop his skills at painting the nude. The sophisticated modeling of the children's faces and their life-like poses in his genre paintings can be attributed to the thorough training he received there. Chierici went on to become internationally recognized during his own lifetime, exhibiting outside of Italy at the Royal Academy in London from 1877 to 1881, as well as in Boston and Washington, D.C.; the Corcoran owned several works by the artist in the early part of this century.

Variations of this composition have been referred to as Warming Dolly's Hands (see Sotheby's, New York, October 17, 1991, lot 60).