1827; oil on canvas
cm. 59 x 44,3
Signed and dated bottom right near the centre: “Gio Migliara / 1827”
Inventory: AH01506AFC
Provenance: Alessandria, Margherita Micheletti Collection (until 1985)
Exibition: 1827, Milano, n. 86

This work was commissioned by Enrico Carozzi in 1827 and shown at the Esposizione Nazionale di Belle Arti di Brera in the same year. Reports of its success with the public appeared promptly in the press together with a print made from the original.

It shows a number of friars working at different tasks in a large kitchen with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. While one monk dresses poultry in the shadows next to a staircase on the left, another is busy cooking and a third, sitting in front of the stove, manages to taste the broth despite a cat’s attempt to get at the spoon. The inscription painted over their heads in large letters reads MANDUCATE QUAE APPONUNTUR VOBIS (Eat what you are given) and a timeworn religious image hangs on another wall. The pots and pans, cooking utensils and items of food resting on the floor, hanging up or placed in jars are all depicted with great attention to detail.

Characterised by a Neo-Flemish attention to silhouetted light effects and still-life elements, the work stands out in Migliara’s repertoire of monastic scenes by virtue of the subtle vein of irony informing its obvious allusion to the good life enjoyed by the friars. There is a very small autograph replica in the municipal art gallery of Alessandria.

While the same vein of amused irony is to be found in another painting in the Cariplo Collection, namely Scene at the Monastery Gate,

The Friars’ Pharmacy (Villa Carlotta, Tremezzo)

, painted in 1823 for Giovanni Battista Sommariva, stands out among the artist’s other works because of its extraordinary quality and narrative vivacity.

Sources:Archivio Storico Intesa Sanpaolo, Patrimonio Cariplo, Opere d’arte. Atti d’acquisto ex Cariplo. Fald. 2/3, pratica no. 879 R/695