Scene musicali, costumi e ritratti di vita popolare nelle province del Regno di Napoli (secc. XVIII-XIX)

In 1782 the king of Naples, Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, promoted an intense reconnaissance campaign in order to find out the different clothing fashions followed throughout his kingdom so that he could enrich the catalogue of figures which were painted on the Royal Factory of Capodimonte porcelain. Among the artists involved there were Saverio Della Gatta, already known for his paintings showing landscapes and scenes of everyday life, and, in the following years, Antonio Berotti and Stefano Santucci. The characters, dressed in traditional costumes of the royal provinces, were mainly represented in watercolours or gouaches portraying individual subjects and genre scenes, sometimes influenced by the artist-travellers from the other side of the Alps. These works describe a peaceful world without strong conflicts, rarely showing poverty or the efforts of work and they are characterized by a certain humanity. This paper aims to highlight some aspects of the presence of music in scenes portraying folk customs and moments of everyday life in the Kingdom of Naples, in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries.