Marginales - History Lab

The fortune teller of Buenaventura

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:28 +0000

Jan Cossiers (1600-1671), a painter of Flemish origin, produced several versions of the same subject of the gypsy fortune-teller. The present situation can be traced back to the two paintings on the same theme by Caravaggio (1571-1610) at the end of the 16th century, but with a more complex scheme involving various figures. In this image, a languid, confident-looking boy has allowed himself to be persuaded to be read by a gypsy woman with two children in tow, who uses a second to steal his hand. The exuberant and even luxurious costumes of the gypsies of Nicolas Regnier (1591-1667) or Georges de la Tour (1593-1652) have been dispelled here, leaving room for ragged clothes at the ends, this gives them a ragged appearance that can be explained by the demographic reality and the poverty that plagued much of Europe in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), but which also finds its raison d’être in the implementation of harsh anti-Gypsy legislation, which classified them as marginalised and even criminal beings. Despite this, such circumstances do not prevent the women in Cossiers’s work from wearing one of the most striking and unique elements of their clothing, the bern, that circular hat with a wicker frame made by interweaving different coloured fabrics. The scene is completed by two other figures, namely a girl with her hand held out in a gesture of silence and a large-mustached gypsy wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a sword in his hand. This leaves open the possibility that we are dealing with a group in which everyone, through their gestures and movements, is linked to the action.

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Stop of gypsies in a rural inn

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:28 +0000

The image of the Gypsies projected by Pieter van Laer, known as “il Bamboccio” (1599-1642), can be better understood if we understand the situation of the Roma who inhabited Italy. As early as the mid-16th century, their expulsion had become widespread throughout the country. The reasons given by the governor of the Papal States in 1552 for “scandal, disorder and robbery” may serve as a justification. Various projects of assimilation to “Christian” ways of life were attempted in various states, especially in Rome in 1631 because of the moral obligation that came with being the head of the Catholic world. As none of the attempts were successful, the custom of lumping them together with “idiots and vagabonds” became widespread. The Gypsies were expelled by legislation, persecuted as criminals by the various police forces and despised by society as a whole, but this does not mean that they had disappeared. As far as possible, they persisted in their ways of life and tried to remain unnoticed. They became part of the lower classes and a kind of osmosis generated by their miserable living conditions unified their outward appearance. Tattered shoes, worn or tattered clothes, lack of colour, utensils on their backs: they represent the spitting image of begging. One of the initiatives that were legislated from the beginning to achieve their social dissolution was thus achieved: the prohibition of identifying clothing. And probably an incipient sedentarisation was also achieved, which led them to inhabit the most humble places in the towns.

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Margaret Finch, Queen of the Norwood Gypsies

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:28 +0000

Gypsies arrived in the British Isles between 1430 and 1440, in the first wave to invade Europe, and almost immediately they were vigorously harassed through legislation, threats and punishment. However, their situation changed around the 17th century and since then the Gypsies have lived in relative tranquillity in various clans. Although it is not common to find Gypsies with their own name, in England in the middle years of the 18th century, one Gypsy, Margaret Finch, was very well known. There are engravings of her with a legend at the bottom where she is called “Queen of the Norwood Gypsies” and is said to be 108 years old. She wears a turban, a blanket and has her legs folded across her chest, a position so common for her that at the end of her life she was unable to stand up. She smokes a long pipe, receives the company and affection of two dogs and has at her feet a cup intended to receive alms or payment for her predictions. It was in itself a spectacle in which people could contemplate, present and conceptualised, one of the existing images of the gypsy imaginary: that of the deformed and ungraceful old gypsy witch.

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Recua and gypsies in a forest

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:30:19 +0000

This oil on copper by the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Elder dates from the early 16th century, when his views, forests and panoramic landscapes became more realistic and his work is rich in details of great technical quality. Throughout the 17th century nature had become the ideal setting for the depiction of gypsies, a wandering group that had been moving around Europe since the early 1400s. Brueghel depicts the subject by depicting a lush forest in the foreground, to the left of which opens diagonally into a wide valley painted in blue. The gypsy women are strategically positioned on a path of obligatory passage that allows them to approach passers-by and their wares. The one seated with the child in her arms covers her head with a bern, a circular hat made of a wicker base and interwoven fabrics, which was very characteristic of Gypsy women’s clothing until the mid-17th century. The rest of the women wear a simple scarf tied around their heads. Although Gypsy women were usually barefoot, Brueghel depicted them wearing shoes, with the exception of the boy who walks without shoes. Several of them carry walking sticks to help them on their way.

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