The wound on the forehead of the peasants' son

This work depicts a scene from everyday life of a miserable and patched humanity, represented by a farmer who tries to dress the wound on his son’s forehead, and by an old spinner portrayed in the foreground with a dog next to her, intent on warming her hands on a brazier.

However, what the painter wants to arouse in the spectators is not emotion, but sympathy, through a style that is akin – according to art historian Roberto Longhi – to that of Eberhard Keil, a Danish artist from whom Cipper also inherits the themes, enriched, however, by the typical freshness of Velázquez.

The work was chosen by Hackert, together with three others by Giacomo Francesco Cipper, to furnish the Game Room of the Real Casino (Royal Palace) of Carditello, the room used by the king and his gentlemen for games and entertainment.

The selection, in addition to being a tribute to the queen – also Austrian like Cipper – proves how the value of the painter was undisputed and widely recognized at the time.