Thorvaldsen's Museum, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Jørgen Sonne, 1988, no. S 83.

Exhibited: An old exhibition label on the stretcher. Kunstforeningen, “Arbejder af Jørgen Sonne”, 1925 no. 22.

Provenance: Council of state Jacob Hegel and his wife Julie Hegel, her auction March 1925 no. 109, illustrated. Art dealer and collector Martin Grosell (1925). Merchant Carl Jacobsen.

Jørgen Sonne has made a repetition of the motif, which is today at Randers Art Museum (Inv. No. 1379). This is no. S 86 in Thorvaldsen's Museum's Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Jørgen Sonne and this was exhibited at Thorvaldsen's Museum & Aarhus Kunstmuseum, “Jørgen Sonne”, 1988 no. 25.

About this painting, Bjarne Jørnæs writes in the exhibition catalogue (in Danish):

“A fortune teller dominates the group on the left, dressed in a dark dress and in the process of telling fortunes to a young seated woman. A group of carnival participants can be seen in the square on the right, including a bearded man disguised as a woman with a dog as an infant, a Pulcinella and a man in a wig and 18th-century costume. The attire of l'ancien regime seems to have been popular as carnival costume, and is often seen in the works of probably the most significant portrayer of the Roman carnival, Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835). His engravings were known to all visitors to Rome at the time, and the artists bought them if they did not study them at Thorvaldsen's, who had a large collection of his works. [...] The scene is set in Trastevere, but it is constructed with the help of studies. The house on the left [...] cannot have been located in this way in relation to the square in front of S. Maria in Trastevere, which the church in the background most closely resembles. There is a painted study for the view towards St. Peter's Basilica [...], and a pencil drawing for the group of figures on the right [...]. Sonne made two almost identical versions of this motif, one in private ownership, painted in Rome and signed 1840, and the one in Randers Kunstmuseum, which must be a repetition. In 1841, Kunstforeningen [The Art Association] acquired a ”Carnival Scene in Rome“ as it is called ”on the Easel“, which could indicate that this was a new painting, i.e. the repetition in Randers. One of the two versions, again most likely the Randers painting, was exhibited at Charlottenborg in 1843 under the title ”A Fortune Teller. Scene of the Roman Carnival“. The first version, measuring 68×92 cm., belonged, when it was exhibited in 1925, to the art collector M. Grosell (Kunstforeningen 1925, cat. 22). Many Danish artists made repetitions of their own works, Martinus Rørbye has explained why: ”However, here in Rome, the economy often offers such repetitions, since the first painting usually, due to the expensiveness of the model, becomes so costly for the artist that it only pays off when a repetition does not compensate for it.“ (Hartmann 1950 p. 50).” (p. 63).