Mount of Piety, 1878 (oil on canvas)

Mount of Piety (Al monte di pietà), by Luigi Serra, c. 1878, 19th Century, oil on canvas, 130 x 65 cm Whole artwork view. Genre-painting depicting an old woman portrayed in person, as she were a personification of the idea of poverty; the nest egg containing goods to leave as a pawn is grasped in her big hands; her melancholic, submissive look is addressed to the ground; the sense of emargination and distress is highlighted through the overflow of details: the inscription cut into the marble at the entrance of the Mount, the crowd in front of the counter, the presence of a younger woman, envelopped in poor fabrics; colours are softened National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art-GNAM