‘Bambochade’ of Musicians by Bernardo Keil

The work belongs to the ‘bambochade’ genre, a French term derived from the Bamboccianti, a group of^17th-centuryRoman painters who depicted scenes of everyday life. These genre paintings were brought into fashion in the second quarter of the^17thcentury by the Dutch artist Pieter van Laer, whose small stature and physical appearance had earned him the nickname ‘Bamboccio’ (the little man, the doll). These genre scenes depict the daily life of the poorest in a burlesque manner, whether they be market scenes, street scenes, scenes of banditry, or scenes in taverns. Having arrived in Rome in 1625, Van Laer introduced, during his fourteen-year stay in the capital of the arts, a raw vision of reality – traditional in Northern genre painting but entirely new to Rome, which was accustomed, at best, to the poetic and grandiose realism of Caravaggio.

The painters who devoted themselves to this genre, known as the Bamboccianti, were active from the mid-1620s until the end of the 17th century. This genre, on the fringes of official painting, spread throughout Europe and appealed to many Italian and foreign painters, whether settled in Rome or merely passing through: Jan Miel, Lingelbach, Helmbrecker, Cerquozzi, all specialised in bambochades, as did Karel Dujardin, Tassel and Sweerts, each of whom brought an original touch to Pieter Van Laer’s style,× characterised by its great figurative vitality and its animated effects of light and colour

The popularity of the genre spread to France through artists such as Jacques Callot, the Le Nain brothers, and Sébastien Bourdon, who, before becoming a history painter, introduced bambochades to Paris, where the genre was previously unknown. The bambochade became a genre in its own right, recognised as such by the Royal Academy of Painting from its foundation in 1648.

In the painting of the Château d’Aulteribe, two musicians and two beggars are depicted, the latter appearing to beg the musicians for money. The brushwork is characteristic of Bernhard Keil’s style, with broad areas of flat colour and shadow effects that feature on the faces, drapery and background alike. A second version of this painting was exhibited by the Schlichte Bergen gallery in Amsterdam at theEuropean Fine Art Fair in Maastricht in 1993; it differs from the Aulteribe version in that it features an older guitarist.

Bernhard Keil, also known as Eberhart Keilhau or Monsù Bernardo, was a Danish painter who, after an initial apprenticeship in Copenhagen, left for Amsterdam in 1642 and joined Rembrandt’s studio. Working as an independent painter from 1649 onwards, he left the United Provinces to settle in Italy in 1651. He stayed in Venice, then in Bergamo, Milan, Ravenna, Forlì and finally in Rome, where he lived from 1656 until his death. The painting at Aulteribe Castle probably dates from this latter period, as it was in Rome that he began to paint ‘bambochades’.

M. Heimbürger, Bernardo Keilhau , known as Monsù Bernardo, Rome , Ugo Bozzi, 1988.

C. Philippon, ‘The Influence of Dutch Painting and the Bambochades on Venetian Vedutism’,Dossier de l’Art,^no.179, November 2010, pp. 30–31.