Street Musicians: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Jean Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) painted this scene of Pifferari or street musicians serenading an unseen image of the Virgin Mary in 1870. Camille Piton etched it for an auction catalog of works from the collection of J. C. Runkle, which were sold on March 8, 1883. The auction was organized by Samuel P. Avery, art dealer and print collector. Pifferari come from the mountains in Calabria, Italy, and from the Abruzzi to play bagpipes and reed instruments like the piffero, a kind of oboe, before images of the Virgin in Rome during the Christmas season. Jean Léon Gérôme was a favorite painter of Stephen Ferris, who named his son after him.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 1879
• Date made: 1883
• original artist: Gerôme, Jean-Léon
• graphic artist: Piton, Camille
• Object Name: print
• Object Type: Etching
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Physical Description: ink (overall material)
• Measurements: image: 14 cm x 11.5 cm; 5 1/2 in x 4 1/2 in
• Measurements: plate: 16 cm x 13.5 cm; 6 5/16 in x 5 5/16 in
• Measurements: sheet: 30 cm x 22.5 cm; 11 13/16 in x 8 7/8 in
• Subject: Musicians
• ID Number: GA.14886
• catalog number: 14886
• accession number: 94830
• Credit Line: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.