Klöppelnde Nonnen

This scene of lace-making nuns depicts enclosed religious women engaged in the handicraft that was a primary economic activity in Italian convents. Lace-making provided income for enclosed communities and demonstrated the disciplined manual skill that monastic rule associated with contemplative labor. The production of Venetian and Genoese lace by convent women was commercially significant, their output distributed through dealers to aristocratic households across Europe. Magnasco's interest in conventual handicraft subjects gives this domestic interior scene an economic and social dimension that complements his more dramatic religious landscapes.

The convent interior and working nuns are painted with Magnasco's rapid, sketch-like technique, the thin figures bent over their work rendered with the elongated proportions and flickering highlights typical of his monastic scenes.