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’ unbridled folly.
Springtime and Love was shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878 and in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair (also known as the Columbian Exposition). It entered the museum’s permanent collection eight years later.
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Philip Gilbert Hamerton, “Continental Painting,” Atlas Series no. 21: Modern Schools of Art (1880), pp. 66–67.
“The New Pictures,” Art Loan Record 1, 19 (1883), p. 148; reprinted Art Loan Record 1, 20 (1883), p. 160
“The New Pictures,” Art Loan Record 1, 21 (1883), p. 168.
“Technique,” Art Loan Record 1, 21 (1883), p. 163.
Bessie, “The Last Words of Bessie,” Art Loan Record 1, 24 (1883), p. 189.
“A Talk about Pictures,” A Delsartean Scrap-Book (New York: United States Book Company, 1891), p. 211.
Lucy B. Monroe, “Art in Chicago,” The New England Magazine 6, 4 (1892), p. 427.
Ernest Knaufft, “Art at the Columbian Exposition,” The Review of Reviews 7, 41 (1893), p. 552.
Lucy Monroe, “Chicago Letter,” The Critic 20, 594 (1893), p. 30.
John Moses and Paul Selby, The White City: The Historical, Biographical and Philanthropical Record of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago World Book Company, 1893), p. 66.
William A. Coffin, “The Columbian Exposition. V – Fine Arts: The French Pictures and the Loan Collection,” The Nation 57, 1470 (1893), p. 152.
World’s Columbian Exposition 1893: Revised Catalogue: Department of Fine Arts with Index of Exhibitors, exh. cat. (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1893), p. 147, cat. 3013.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture, and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1894), p. 58, no. 76.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1895), p. 69, no. 76.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1896), p. 76, no. 76.
Charles Francis Browne, “The Permanent Collections in the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago: VII. – The Munger Collection,” Brush and Pencil 3, 2 (1898), pp. 70, 73.
“Chicago, ILL.: The Art Institute of Chicago,” in American Art Annual 1898 (London: Macmillan & Co., 1899), p. 143, no. 76.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1901), p. 166, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1904), p. 172, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report of the Trustees (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1904), p. 64.
Florence N. Levy, “Art in America,” Burlington Magazine 7, 29 (1905), p. 399.
“The Inaugural Loan Exhibition: Albright Art Gallery,” Academy Notes 1, 1 (1906), p. 18.
William M. R. French, “The Field of Art: The Chicago Art Institute Collection of Paintings,” Scribner’s Magazine 40, 2 (1906), pp. 383–84.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Sculpture, Paintings and Other Objects (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1907), p. 183, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Sculpture, Paintings and Other Objects (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1910), p. 174, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Collections Illustrated, with a Historical Sketch and Description of the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1910), p. 23.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1913), p. 117, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, General Catalogue of Paintings, Sculpture and Other Objects in the Museum (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1914), p. 121, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture and Architecture (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1917), p. 121, no. 157.
“Give Help to Belgium,” American Artisan and Hardware Record 74, 23 (1917), p. 15.
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“Chicago Art Institute Color Prints,” Social Progress 4, 2 (1920), no pag. no; reprinted Social Progress 4, 12 (1920); Social Progress 5, 2 (1921).
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture and Paintings (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1922), p. 26, no. 157.
“Chicago Notes: S. D. Childs,” Geyer’s Stationer 73, 1839 (1922), p. 27.
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), p. 26, no. 157.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), pp. 4 (ill.), 146, no. 157.
Michele Biancale, “Le serpi e gli storpi di F. P. Michetti: saggio di un’interpretazione dell’arte Michettiana,” Bollettino d’Arte del Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, ser. 2, 6, 7 (1927), pp. 485, 500 (ill.), fig. 19.
The Delphian Society, Delphian Text, pt. 4 (Chicago: The Delphian Society, 1930), pp. 11, 17 (ill.), 62.
“Michetti, Francesco Paolo,” in Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 24 (Leipzig: Verlag von E. A. Seemann, 1930), p. 532.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), p. 163.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 311.
A. M. Comanducci, Dizionario illustrato: dei pittori Disegnatori e incisori italiani, moderni e contemporanei, 4th ed., vol. 3 (Milano: Luigi Patuzzi Editore, 1972), p. 2014.
Marc Simpson, Uncanny Spectacle: The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent, exh. cat. (Williamstown, Massachusetts: Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, 1997), p. 90, under no. 8.
Anna Maria Damigella in Silvia Cassani and Paola Rivazio, Francesco Paolo Michetti: dipiniti, pastelli, disegni, exh. cat. (Rome: Palazzo di Venezia, 1999), p. 198, under no. 23.
Kirsten M. Jensen, “The American Salon: The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, 1873–1890,” vol. 2 (Ph.D. diss., The City University of New York, 2007), p. 422.
Marc Simpson, “Bladders and Blue Shadows: “Neapolitan Children Bathing,” in Sarah Cash, Sargent and the Sea, exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art 2009), pp. 139, 140, fig. 176.
Javier Barón, Fortuny (1838-1874), exh. cat. (Museo Nacional del Prado, 2017), p. 74; 75, fig. 4.
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, cat. 44.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art at the Time of the Centennial, June 19–August 8, 1976, no cat.
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.
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