the Fortune teller
|
| the Fortune teller |
|---|
| Georges de la Tour , between 1630 a. 1639 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 102 × 123 cm |
| Metropolitan Museum |
The fortune teller is a painting by the French baroque painter Georges de la Tour . It was probably made between 1630 and 1639 .
background
The picture was only discovered in the middle of the 20th century as a work by the hitherto largely unknown painter de la Tour. The art dealer Georges Wildenstein outbid the Louvre in Paris and, to the horror of the French public, secretly sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1960 . The work is one of the painter's “day pieces” and shows a “scene from the picaresque life”. The authenticity of the picture has been questioned again and again. While some point out the similarities with La Tours pictures about card cheating, others have become puzzled because the swear word “Merde” (French: “shit”) has been woven into the scarf of the second girl from the left. Since this was probably added later, this word was removed in 1982 during a renovation.
The paintings
In the picture, a milk-faced young man is closely surrounded by a group of women who, with one exception, have a dark complexion, which suggests that they are gypsy women . The old woman on the right offers the young man to read from his hand, she is holding a coin in her hand (presumably her payment) with which, as was usual, she will mark a cross over his open hand before the divination begins . She talks to him, distracts him, while the fair-skinned woman nips off a golden coin from his chain with tongs.
The girl on the far left is also about to steal from him, especially since her hand is reaching for the young man's waistcoat. The young man does not seem to trust this group. Both his gaze and his splayed elbow, with which he tries to make himself taller and stockier, radiate skepticism and insecurity. Nevertheless, he allows the thieves to have an easy time of it. The fair-skinned one is particularly eye-catching: she actually doesn't fit into the picture, her complicity with the others can be understood as an indication of the then widespread belief that Gypsies kidnapped white-skinned children, raised them in their families and used them in fraud.
Art historians have confirmed the game of glances in finding a picture of La Tour here, as the similarity to pictures such as card- cheating is unmistakable. The young man's gaze is under the spell of the old gypsy, she has to see that he remains distracted. The eyes of the young girls go back and forth, one looks at the young man, the second from the left at her fair-skinned accomplice. The apparent calm of the upper part of the picture contrasts with the concentration in the lower part, where the thieves' eyes express their tension. They do not want to and must not be caught, because pickpocketing committed by the illegitimate group of gypsies was punished with public flogging without trial.
literature
- Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen: Viewing Images - Masterpieces in Detail , Benedikt-Taschenverlag Cologne 1994