# Boy with a Basket [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CERUTI, Giacomo]() - Date: 1701-1750 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 117 x 92 cm ## Commentary Boy with a Basket c. 1730 Oil on canvas, 117 x 92 cm Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia This painting is on deposit from a private collection. Ceruti was a specialist in depicting poor people, labourers, cripples and beggars in life-size figures on large canvases. He composed his pictures in the pale tints of the dust and rags in which his mendicants, known as 'pitocchi,' dwelt. And for this strange speciality, Ceruti came to be called by the uncomplimentary nickname 'il pitocchetto', the 'little beggar.' Ceruti often painted the seemingly countless boys who earned a meagre living as porters for hire in the city streets. The winters are cold in Brescia, near the Alps, a young boy has wrapped himself as warmly as possible, his buttonless jacket tied with a rope. He strides purposefully across an open space, not breaking his stride, but looks directly at us. In the background are seen the crumbling walls of a rustic hospice that provides shelter to the poor and invalid. ## Related artworks - [Beggar Resting]() - [Boy with a Basket of Fish]() - [Boy with a Basket]() - [Encounter in the Wood]() - [Evening at the Piazza]() - [Girl with a Distaff]() - [Little Beggar Girl and Woman Spinning]() - [Portrait of a Capuchin Friar]() - [Portrait of a Country Woman]() - [Portrait of a Man]() - [Portrait of a Smoking Man in Oriental Habit]() - [Portrait of a Woman]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()