Keeper of the Turkeys [Gardeuse de dindons] 1876

Francesco Paolo Michetti made this etching, "Keeper of the Turkeys", at an unknown date. It depicts a young woman amidst a flurry of foliage, seemingly tending to the turkeys at her feet. Michetti was an Italian painter and photographer. He moved in progressive artistic circles and was interested in Realism and the representation of peasant life. He rejected the conventions of academic painting, preferring to represent the lives of ordinary people. Note how the turkey keeper is not an idealized beauty, but a real person, and the turkeys themselves are given as much attention as she is. If we want to understand the image, we need to know something about the role of women in rural Italian society at the time. What was their work? How were they represented in art and literature? What did it mean to show a woman in this role? These are the kinds of questions a historian would ask when looking at a work of art. Historical research into archives and other documents can help us understand the social and cultural context in which Michetti's image was made.