Old Woman with a Child, Allegory of “Taste” (?)

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The old woman has chestnuts in her lap, a little girl is approaching; she would probably like some chestnuts. The figures are based on Keilhau’s painting of an old man and a young man, which was once in the Sabatello collection in Rome.

The two figures are arranged almost mechanically, which suggests that the picture was painted by someone from the artist’s workshop and adapted from the master’s models. It cannot be excluded that it is one of a series of the five senses and that it represents the sense of taste

Artist Eberhart Keilhau

Technique oil, canvas

Dimensions 73 x 58 cm

Inventory number N 8624, ZD S 1997056, National Museum of Slovenia

Collection 1600–1700

Restored: 1960, ZSV, Ljubljana.
Provenance: Unknown. On the back of the original canvas (which is relined today) the inscription: Murillo Original Collection Cardinal Fuhr. – FCC, ca. 1945.
Exhibitions: 1960, Ljubljana, No. 31; 1993, Ljubljana, No. 25.
Lit.: Cevc 1960, p. 23, Cat. No. 31 (Monsu Bernardo ?, attribution by Grga Gamulin, Zagreb); Heimbürger 1988, p. 222, Cat. and Fig. No. 138; Zeri and Rozman 1993, p. 145, Cat. No. 25, Fig. 27.