FRANCESCO ZUCCARELLI | A group of peasants dancing and playing music in a landscape

The canvas has an old relining. The surface is flat and stable, with minimal craqueleure. The paint color remains vibrant, particularly in the details of the clothing, and there are a handful of areas where thick impasto has been preserved nicely, such as in the highlights in the tree trucks and the white details in the costumes. Under ultra violet light the varnish is somewhat milky and there are only a few areas of repaint that flouresce, including some strengthening in the upper right of the sky and in the instrument of the figure seated on the bench in the foreground. Overall it appears bright and can be hung as is. Offered in a carved giltwood frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

We are grateful to Dott.ssa Federica Spadotto for endorsing the attribution to Zuccarelli on the basis of photographs, and proposing a date of execution in the late 1760s, during the artist's final sojourn in England.  A variant of the work, with a similar landscape and tented encampment but some differences in the staffage, is in a private collection.¹  1. See F. Spadotto, Francesco Zuccarelli, Milan 2007, cat. no. 394, p. 172.