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.

Personally I know from my years of living in Florence that a coquettish woman is colloquially called a Civetta in Italy. Perhaps this began as referring to flirtation with large eyes? Whatever it was, that’s the slang.

I’ve never seen a depiction of a game in which owls had men’s heads, but I remembered this 2 part sculptural group in Florence called Il Gioco della Civetta. It still doesn’t seem to be the same game being played in the painting, but until I can get back to Italy, it will remain a mystery to me.

The sculptural group of the The Owl Game (Gioco della Civetta) is located in the Boboli Gardens and consists of two white marble statues depicting two young men while playing. The aim of this game was to take the hat off to the other player who, in order to try to escape, had to bend over continuously (in Italian ‘fare civetta’). Therefore, one character is outstretched to grab the hat, while the other is attempting to deftly dodge the opponent’s move. The jacket of one of the two players is unbuttoned, precisely because of the abrupt movement that he makes by throwing himself backwards, and both figures are supported by tree stumps.

The Owl Game was originally commissioned to a sculptor known as ‘Matteo scultore’ in 1618 and its execution, which lasted for several years, was completed by different artists. The modelling was probably done by Orazio Mochi, who took inspiration from Giambologna’s Uccellatori. The statues were then sculpted by Romolo Ferrucci del Tadda, who left the group unfinished at his death, missing one figure. After various assignments, the work was finally completed by Bartolomeo Rossi in 1622. Unfortunately, The Owl Game in stone deteriorated quickly and got destroyed.

In 1775, Grand Duke Peter Leopold entrusted sculptor Giovanni Battista Capezzuoli with the task of remaking the work and the artist decided to sculpt it out of white marble instead of bigia stone. From the panel of the Giuochi rusticali (Rustic games) made by Vascellini in 1788, the group appeared to be consisting of three figures, while only two figures have survived to present days. When looking at the 18th-century replica, it is no longer possible to distinguish the hands of the various sculptors who worked on the original group in stone: Pizzorusso (1989) attributes the original of the figure on the left to Bartolomeo Rossi and the one on the right to Romolo Ferrucci del Tadda. The realisation in marble of the original group diluted the stylistic features of previous artists. The copyist was inspired by 16th-century representations of ‘peasants’, relying on the narrative and playful style that was typical of 17th-century genre painting.

At any rate, the painting is strange!