1878
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Dominant colour
Springtime and Love is a 1878 oil by Francesco Paolo Michetti, a Impressionism work, depicting Summer, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see children laughing on a bright hillside. One girl twirls a tambourine, its metal jingles flashing. A spaniel prances in the grass, tail wagging. Michetti painted this scene in Abruzzo, Italy. He loved local festivals and folk music. The tambourine wasn’t just an instrument—it stood for the sun’s warmth in folk belief. Look up the Art Institute of Chicago to see this joyful scene in person.
This vibrant scene of children playing on a sun-drenched hilltop was part of a series by Francesco Michetti inspired by the people, landscape, festivals and other events in Abruzzo, Italy. Two figures on the right play tambourines, quintessential instruments of southern Italian folk music. With its rounded shape encircled by metal jingles, the tambourine represented for local audiences the sun and its rays spreading light and heat throughout the region. In the foreground a spaniel dog with a large, glassy eye stares out at the viewer like a reproachful commentator on his human companions’…
Charles Field Haseltine (died 1915), Philadelphia, by 1883 [lent to Chicago 1883]. Albert A. Munger (died 1898), Chicago, by 1890 [this and the following according to Monroe 1892]; on loan to the Art Institute from 1890; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1901.
Paris, Exposition Universelle Internationale de 1878, May 1–November 10, 1878, cat. 115. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Art Loan Exhibition, 1883, cat. 2639. Chicago, The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, September 5–October 20, 1883, cat 134. Philadelphia, Stevens’ Galleries, A Great Collection of Paintings belonging to Mr. Charles F. Haseltine, January 1886, cat. 231. Chicago, World’s Columbian Exposition, May 1–October 30, 1893, cat. 2945. Buffalo, New York, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, The Inaugural Loan Exhibition, May 31–July 1, 1905,…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Francesco Paolo Michetti was an Italian painter known especially for his genre works.
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