Claudi (Blind Guitar Player), from the suite of Florentine Street Characters

Inscriptions

In image, lower left: CLAUDI; in plate, bottom left: Lasinio disegni e incise dal vero; in plate, bottom center: In Firenze presso la Società Cliografica; in plate, bottom right: Gaeto: [o superscript] Calamandrei impresse à Colori.

Label

In these etchings, Carlo Lasinio depicts two street musicians and one beggar. Lasinio uses visual markers, such as closed or empty eyes, to indicate their blindness. Note how Lasinio’s depiction of blindness changed in the hand-colored version of Domenico Bartolini. The Suite of Florentine Street Characters includes sixteen portraits, including performers, customers, and salespeople. Why might these blind men have been included in the suite? How might being blind have impacted their career options?

From the 2021 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 103, Images of Disability, curated by Maeve McBride '20, Conroy Intern

Course History

ITAL 23, Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Italian Literature and Culture, Nancy Canepa, Spring 2012

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue, Images of Disability, Maeve McBride, Dartmouth Class of 2020, Conroy Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 9–December 19, 2021.

Published References

Paola Cassinelli Lazzeri, Carlo Lasinio: incisioni, Gabinetto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi, 90, Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004, 52-55, no. XIV. Paola Cassinelli Lazeri, "Temi caricaturali nella produczione incisoria di Carlo Lasinio," Critica d'arte 55, nos.2-3 (April-September 1990: 66-73. Hans Wolfgang Singer, "Der Vierfarbendruck in der Gefolgschaft Jacob Christoffel le Blons mit Oeuvre-Verzeichnissen der Familie Gautier Dagoty, J. Roberts, J. Ladmirals und C. Lasinios," Monatshefte fur Kunstwissenschaft 10 (1917): 177-99, 281-292, 301-314; and 11 (1918): 52-73, esp. 62-63, nos.12-26.

Provenance

James A. Bergquist, Newton Centre, Massachusetts; sold to present collection, 2010.

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Subjects