North Italian School, 17th Century, after Abraham Bosse

Pelham Galleries, London;

From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian, 2012.

Produced in seventeenth-century Northern Italy, this charming quartet of paintings on alabaster are based on a series of prints engraved circa 1638 by Abraham Bosse, one of the most important French printmakers of the seventeenth century. The painter incorporates the figural groups from Bosse’s the Five Senses, among his most popular series, and streamlines the elaborate settings, thereby recasting the vignettes into delightful depictions of quotidian life.¹

Taken together, the scenes illustrate the range of pleasures that derive from engaging ones senses.  In Sight and Sound²—a combined composition that condenses two of Bosse’s engravings—a musical ensemble performs together. A woman plays a lute alongside two men, one who plays the viola de gamba and another who accompanies them in song. At left, an elegantly-attired lady holds up a mirror and admires her reflection. Smell³ depicts a trio of elegant figures strolling before a garden and enjoying the floral scents of their nosegays. And in Taste⁴ a couple savors a meal together: the woman reaches for an artichoke as the man imbibes (a page at left, with a pitcher of wine in hand, stands at the ready to refill his glass). 

The visualization of Touch,⁵ which depicts two empty chairs, deviates most noticeably from Bosse’s print, in which an amorous couple occupies one of the seats. The painting omits the (perhaps too suggestive?) encounter and instead focuses on a servant poised at right to open red bedcurtains. Touch is thereby evoked through the feeling of smooth velvet rather than a lover’s caress.  

¹ On the printed ensemble, see Abraham Bosse savant graveur, exhibition catalogue, S. John-Lambert and M. Préaud (eds.) (Tours 2004), pp. 192-196, cat. nos. 163-167. Peter Troeschel in Antwerp and Abraham Aubry in Strasbourg both engraved full sets of the series and an anonymous French artist produced five paintings after the series, today in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours (inv. nos. 912.1.1-912.1.5).

² For the prints, see J. Lothe, L’œuvre gravé d’Abraham Bosse, graveur parisien du XVIIe siècle (Paris 2008), p. 278-279, cat. nos. 315, 320.

³ For the print, see J. Lothe, L’œuvre gravé d’Abraham Bosse, graveur parisien du XVIIe siècle (Paris 2008), p. 278, cat. no. 316.

⁴ For the print, see J. Lothe, L’œuvre gravé d’Abraham Bosse, graveur parisien du XVIIe siècle (Paris 2008), p. 279, cat. no. 319.

⁵ For the print, see J. Lothe, L’œuvre gravé d’Abraham Bosse, graveur parisien du XVIIe siècle (Paris 2008), p. 279, cat. no. 321.