Eugenio Zampighi, Peasant Family, c 1890s, oil on canvas, donor: Mrs. B. F. Hamilton
In 1884, shortly after settling in Florence, Italian artist, Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi began a series of genre paintings. He produced over ten works, including this one displayed in the Elston house, which depict images of peasant families from the Florentine countryside. Each painting shows a family during daily work and recreation, but they are always happy despite of their poor means. Today, many of these works of this series have been sold in auctions in Italy and internationally, or can be found in the hall of the Modena Academy and other museums around the world.
Zampighi’s Peasant Family is one of his masterworks, because of its size and the number of figures in the image. In his series of peasants, he explores one or two figures in their daily activities, but in this one, he presents the relationships between a multi-generational family. One point of emphasis that can easily be missed is a painting of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus on the wall of the modest farm kitchen. This addition could be addressing the religious beliefs of the family or of the artist, Zampighi. This could also be a symbol of the moral tale of the importance of family and significance of those relationships. Zampighi’s ability to capture the emotion of the scene and each individual character is remarkable.
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Tyrone Evans