Taddeo Employed on Menial Tasks at Calabrese's House

Here Taddeo Zuccaro performs the numerous menial tasks his master's wife ordered him to do. Under the watchful eye of his mistress, he makes the Calabreses' bed, which is raised on a low platform on the left. He brings wood from the cellar, balancing a jug on his head, and crouches on the floor to start the fire for cooking. In the background, Federico Zuccaro enlarged the window so that he could show the view of the Castel Sant'Angelo, with the bridge and the old and new Saint Peter's basilica in the distance. In Florence or Venice, Taddeo would have found a place in a well-organized studio of some established artist. But in Rome, where more haphazard conditions existed, he drifted from one minor painter to another, supporting himself by doing odd jobs about their studios and working as a servant in their homes.