''The Clubfoot'' (also known as ''The Club-Footed Boy'') is a 1642 oil on canvas painting by

Jusepe de Ribera Jusepe de Ribera (; baptised 17 February 1591 – 3 November 1652) was a Spanish painter and Printmaking, printmaker. Ribera, Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artist ...

. It is housed in the

Musée du Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

in Paris (part of the La Caze bequest of 1869), and was painted in

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

. Art historian

Ellis Waterhouse Sir Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse (16 February 1905 – 7 September 1985) was an English art historian and museum director who specialised in Roman baroque and English painting. He was Director of the National Galleries of Scotland (1949–52) a ...

wrote of it as "a touchstone by which we can interpret the whole of Ribera's art". Commissioned by a Flemish dealer, the painting features a Neapolitan beggar boy with a deformed foot. Behind him is a vast and luminous landscape, against which the boy stands with a gap-toothed grin, wearing earth-toned clothes and holding his crutch slung over his left shoulder. Written in Latin on the paper in the boy's hand is the sentence "DA MIHI ELEMOSINAM PROPTER AMOREM DEI" ("Give me alms, for the love of God").

History

This is one of the painter's last works, and one of the most bitter. The contrast of light and shade gave him pleasure. He studied the composition of the

Renaissance painters Renaissance art (1350 – 1620) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurr ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, and perhaps also the work of

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

artists, but in spite of all that, he clung to the profoundly

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

tradition of

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

, even after having spent nearly all his life in Italy. Moved by a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

awareness of human weakness, Spanish artists often painted pictures of the poor and disabled. Here the young Neapolitan vagabond seems to be making game of his own infirmity; he is also careful to inform us, by means of the scrap of writing he holds, that he is dumb as well as crippled, because he appeals to the charity of the passer-by with that card written in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. The motif is surely a derivation of taste for scenes of low life in art, as instituted by

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (also Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the fina ...

and followed by Ribera, who was in

his most fervent admirer in the realist vein. M. Laclotte & J-P. Cuzin, ''The Louvre: Paintings'', Scala Publishers Ltd (2004), ''s.v. "Ribera"''.

Notes

External links

''The Clubfoot'', Louvre

* ttp://www.artble.com/artists/jusepe_de_ribera/paintings/the_clubfoot ''The Clubfoot'' on Artble website. Accessed 13 January 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Clubfoot, The Paintings by Jusepe de Ribera 1642 paintings Paintings in the Louvre by Spanish artists Oil on canvas paintings Paintings of children Works about disability

History

Notes

Further reading

External links