Springtime and Love

This vibrant scene of children playing on a sun-drenched hilltop was part of a series by Francesco Michetti inspired by the people, landscape, festivals and other events in Abruzzo, Italy. Two figures on the right play tambourines, quintessential instruments of southern Italian folk music. With its rounded shape encircled by metal jingles, the tambourine represented for local audiences the sun and its rays spreading light and heat throughout the region. In the foreground a spaniel dog with a large, glassy eye stares out at the viewer like a reproachful commentator on his human companions’ unbridled folly.

Springtime and Love was shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878 and in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair (also known as the Columbian Exposition). It entered the museum’s permanent collection eight years later.