The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

The Fair at Impruneta

1620

Jacques Callot

(French, 1592–1635)
France, 17th century
etching on two sheets of paper joined
Sheet: 43.2 x 67.6 cm (17 x 26 5/8 in.)
L. E. Holden Fund 1962.20
Catalogue raisonné: Lieure (2) II.14.361
Location: 101A Prints & Drawings

Did You Know?

Callot's innovative formulas and techniques for etching included a process of stepped acid baths to achieve greater tonal variation from foreground to background.

Description

The annual fair held in Impruneta, a commune in Florence, Italy, was an opportunity for rural and urban communities to comingle and partake in commerce, socializing, and festivity. Jacques Callot filled the panorama with 1,138 people, 45 horses, 67 donkeys, and 137 dogs. Prominent in the left foreground is a vendor of tableware patronized by a mix of social classes, selling footed tazzas (shallow cups mounted on stems) and goblets. Pick-pocketing, fighting, snake-charming, and the punishment of a criminal by torture also occur. Callot dedicated this print to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, for whom the fair signified a healthy Florentine economy.
  • ?–1962
    (R. M. Light & Co., Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    February 17, 1962–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 117 archive.org
    McTighe, Sheila. Representing from Life in Seventeenth-Century Italy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 92-93, fig. 29; P. 131, fig. 46
  • In Vino Veritas (In Wine, Truth). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 7, 2025-January 11, 2026).
    Promenades, Pageants, Processions, and Pilgrimages. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 25, 1981-January 3, 1982).
    Stefano Della Bella; Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione; Jacques Bellange; Jacques Callot. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (May 7-July 13, 1980).
    Festivities, Ceremonies, and Celebrations in Western Europe, 1500-1790. David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI (organizer) (March 2-25, 1979).
    Florence and the Arts: Five Centuries of Patronage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 13-September 19, 1971).
    Old Master Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 29, 1966-February 28, 1967).
    Prints and Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 6-September 9, 1965).
    Year in Review - 1962. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 24-November 25, 1962).
  • {{cite web|title=The Fair at Impruneta|url=false|author=Jacques Callot|year=1620|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1962.20