Pietro Fabris, The Game of Civetta, Late 1700s. Oil paint on canvas; 33 3/8 × 47 7/8 in. (84.8 × 121.6 cm). Gift of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2019.8.1

image height: 33 3/8 in, 84.7725 cm; image width: 47 7/8 in, 121.6025 cm; frame height: 40 1/4 in, 102.235 cm; frame width: 55 in, 139.7000 cm

European and American Art Before 1900

European Painting and Sculpture before 1900

This object is currently on view

The painting is one of a pair illustrating an allegory of male naiveté and the slyness of women. “Civetta” is the Italian word for "screech-owl" but is also used informally to describe a flirtatious woman, or coquette. In the painting male birds are caught in traps set by women using an attractive woman as bait. 

Baroque Holdings, Inc.; their sale, Sotheby’s, New York, May 22, 1997, lot 126; from which acquired by William M. B. and Bernadette Johnson Berger; Berger Collection Educational Trust; gifted to the Denver Art Museum, 2019. Provenance research is on-going at the Denver Art Museum and we will post information as it becomes available. Please e-mail provenance@denverartmuseum.org, if you have questions, or if you have additional information to share with us.

• “Stampede: Animals in Art” — Denver Art Museum, 9/10/2017